Well, call me a nutcase but I don’t buy into it.   For online as well as offline I like to decentralize and that’s true for my  personal as well as blog income business services.  It may mean a little more work but that’s the way I prefer it.  Centralizing in my view is surrendering unnecessary control and no, I am not a control freak (at least I don’t think so).  It’s the way my daddy brought me up and for good reason too!

This is a conversation I have had on and off for many years.  For the last few it seemed to have retired into a dormant state .  A few weeks ago it stirred, awoke and surfaced again and it just won’t go away.  I thought you might like to weigh in with your point of view on this – besides I’d love to know what your opinion on this subject is for while not exactly earth shattering it does impact every one of us in some way or another.

Central or regional management?  That has been an age old battle in the corporate world and depending on the trend, objectives of the company or the personal preference of the top man at any given time, companies have taken one route over the other suffering confusion, issues  of resentment, loyalty and trust in the transition.  It seems that when a company’s fortunes are  contracting the troops are reigned in, when fortunes  are on the rise employee empowerment becomes the modus operandi.

Centralized management may be an operative model for corporations and governments too, but I question its validity when it comes to You Inc., especially to those of us who are on the internet to earn an online income.  The issues are small, but then as you grow so will the issues.

There is a school of thought that subscribes to centralizing as much of your internet marketing as possible.  Some of the biggest names support the concept.  Bundle up as many services and buy them through one provider whenever you can.    The obvious pro for such a system is that you have everything ready in one spot, don’t have to go looking for things – they are all there under one roof, so ease of access and efficiency rule.

But I prefer to purchase my services independently rather than bundled and directly from the vendor if possible.  My father was a business man.  Historically my family have had to fly by the seat of their pants – long story but it began in 1917 in Russia when the Russian Tzar lost his country and his life, whilst my grandparents on both sides merely lost their country.   So this might be taking it to the extremes but my father often told me that how not having all the family eggs in one basket enabled them to first make a life in China then Japan eventually Australia … and then here I am, in Canada!

What I learned at my father’s knees was that one should not give up control over that which is yours.  So I come by this bullheadedness quite honestly.  At the most basic level of my blog income business I buy the following services separately:

-         DOMAINS: I use a broker, Go Daddy, even though I may be paying a bit more than if I used another broker because amongst other things, I find their services and support to be outstanding.  No Go Daddy is not the actual registrar of domains and to be honest, I,m not sure but I don’t think that you can buy domain names directly from the registrar.

-          HOSTING: I could, but don’t, have Go Daddy host my sites, instead I use Hostgator.  Hosting is their specialty and once again I have found that their support has been exceptional.  On the reverse side, I could but do not buy my domain names through Hostgator.

-          BLOG PLATFORM:  I choose to use Wordpress Direct.  This is a second layer, if you will, on Wordpress.  This appears to be contradictory to my mantra of buying direct from the service provider.  I have good reason.  For someone like myself who is not the best at tech type stuff (and not wanting to be a master of all) I like this platform because they offer full support.  They do the initial heavy lifting but I still have direct access to the back end admin area of Wordpress.  Once again I could but do not use Go Daddy as my site platform.

What if I had decided to use Go Daddy as my one stop shop for the above three services and something went wrong.   I don’t just mean that Go Daddy would go down.  An extremely successful internet marketer I know had come to some sort of an impasse with his domain broker.  The breakup was not pleasant.  Imagine the additional work he would have had to go to move his many, many sites from the domain broker’s basket   Fortunately, he subscribes to the same principles that I do.  All he needed to do was move all his domains to another broker.  The adjustments were minimal.

I have spoken with people who bought their domains through their hosting service.  The hosting service disappeared.  They had no idea how to recover their domains. Moreover it was not clear if it was the host company or themselves who were registered as the owners of the domains.  Eventually after much hair tearing they were able to find the domains and come to a happy conclusion .   In my instance, should Hostgator run into difficulties I know  that my domain names are not affected.

This is just an example.   It is obviously over simplified.  I use it to illustrate my point.

As you begin to earn more and more from your online business you will want to outsource some of the daily tasks.  What are your thoughts on this?  Would you prefer to centralize, appoint a company to handle the many aspects of your business and just deal with one person?  Or … would you rather select individuals who specialize in certain tasks and have them report to you?    Which model do you think is better suited for you?  Why?

Had a wonderful Christmas.  Quick jaunt to LAX for a few fun days with my daughter, back in time for local festivities.

Typically my Sunday mornings are given to musings on whatever it is that  captures my thoughts on any given Sunday morning. Today it is my blog income life that is top of mind.  As the year draws to a close I find that I am examining my blog income life in greater detail – both in terms of the blog itself and indeed, the life that I am leading because of blogging.

As mentioned in a previous  post, I am nominally pleased with the progress of the blog and am confident that it will continue to improve in the coming year and beyond.

Now the life.  The money truck has not rolled up the driveway so drinking fine wines and dining out on epicurean delights has not happened with any regularity yet. I do spend a good deal of my time writing, oh heck, most of my time.  Blogging is addictive and I love it!

One of the things that keeps niggling on my mind is time.  I am fortunate that I derive enough from my businesses so that I can spend a lot of time writing.  Reading is also something I enjoy.  I have an ever lengthening list of books to read.  On the list for the longest time has been The 4-Hour Workweek.  I never bought it – other books kept taking precedence – until last week.

Whenever I fly I buy a book at the airport bookstore.  Last week I was on my way to Los Angeles – that is a good two and a half hour flight, enough for a good read.  I walked into the bookstore and what should be there front and center but The 4-hour Workweek!  Expanded and Updated yet!  A whole100 pages more than the original, of course I snapped it up.

Days later I am visiting Pat’s Smart Passive Income Blog and lo!  The 4-hour Workweek is prominently featured again. The Universe is sending me a message, right? Right?

Now it’s got me in a conundrum.  Of course I buy into doing less and getting more – who doesn’t?  The idea I have nurtured whilst taking internet marketing courses  was that I would build an online business that would allow me to be anywhere I wanted to be at any time and if I needed some additional funds all I would need to do – as the gurus say –  is press “send” and make money.

Reading Tim Ferriss’ book however has put a whole different spin on my idea.  My business plan for 2010 is pretty much complete.  Throughout the year I always tweak as needed. I suspect that much of that tweaking will be centered around The 4-Hour Workweek.  Dan Lok , a local internet marketing wunderkind once told me that he worked like the devil the first year in internet marketing, but now he is down to 4 hours a day, 4 days a week (he is in his seventh year in the biz). Maybe I can just “tweak” down to not working past a certain hour in the day for starters but still have better and better results.

For now, from my mental meanderings to yours … what’s on your mind when it comes to the time you spend blogging?

To an Awesome Blog Income Life!

Valentina

I thought this would be an appropriate time to share my reflection on the passing year, lessons learned and a bird’s eye view of 2010.

Birth of a Blog:
This blog began as a “buddy” system for some friends and myself who bought a program that promised to be a money machine without any heavy lifting..  We found that not only was there lots of heavy lifting but that we did not understand most of it.  We hoped to attract other customers of that program and share experiences here.  Frustration set in. Very quickly my colleagues decided that it was not for them and moved on to other, greener pastures.

There is a stubborn streak that runs down my back.  I don’t easily give up or maybe its just plain pride that does not want to own up to failure … or it could be my downright orneriness.   Right about that time I came across several blogs on blogging, Caroline Middlebrook’s was one.  I thought I could do something like that, chronicle my journey on blogging.   The idea being that I had taken several internet marketing courses and could apply what I learned here, and learn more as I blogged.  Got myself a new domain name, redirected it to the  Blogger one, changed the title in my header.

Plan to Succeed
The danger of knowing a little bit is that you don’t know what you don’t know.  I had the basic text book knowledge down pat – or so I thought and wrote about it.   Anemic results did not phase me, at least not at the beginning. Contrary to my training which I apply to all my businesses, I did not develop a business plan for this blog so did not even have benchmarks to reach.  In retrospect, even though I “launched” my blogging career at the start of this year my approach to it was less than businesslike.  To succeed in anything you need a plan.

Anemic monthly results continued to dog me and began to take a toll … should I just give up?  Was this a bad idea?  What do I know about blogging anyway?  What hope did I have of ever getting Google’s blessing and traffic let alone make money? The temptation to throw in the towel was strong.  Numbers tumbled – ok, slipped – tumble would suggest that there was a long way down to tumble to.

Defining Moment
Attending Frank Kern’s Mass Control was a major turning point for me.  I went not for the blogging, but to learn more on internet marketing.  Suddenly the penny dropped.  Here I was yet again taking another internet marketing course.  Just how many of these do I need? Don’t get me wrong – the event was stupendous but I asked myself, how much of what I learn am I going to implement?  Knowledge is good, but for it to be effective you have to use it, to apply it.

One of the speakers was Ed Dale.  He got a standing ovation.  The man impressed me enormously.  He mentioned his Thirty Day Challenge which he runs every year in August.  One of the uber gurus present, Jason Moffat, apparently was the first winner of the challenge some five years ago.  Thinking about this blog I decided it deserved another chance, or more to the point, I deserved another chance to make something of it.    I would take the 30-Day Challenge.  That was the best decision I made.  I learned a lot.  As a result of that “challenge” I made the following changes:

1.  New Domain Name
Using my newfound knowledge and a nifty tool called Market Samurai I changed the domain name   from Blog Along With Me to Blog Income Life.  I wrote about the reason for the change in this post

2.  Switched from Blogger to Wordpress Direct.  This version of Wordpress is a little bit more user friendly for us non-techie types while still offering flexibility and entry to those who are to be able to work behind the scenes in the html/c-panel/ftp world.

3.  Started to find other blogs of similar content – yes the biggies to start with, but my Google Alert and Google Reader (two services I was not aware of before) introduced me to others who were not yet well known, indeed newer at the game than myself and with better results.

4.  Became a commenter on some of them.

5.  Changed my template when a successful blogger whom I admire observed that my theme was blah … he also suggested that I should write about something I knew, but by then I realized that I actually enjoy writing on this blog, and that what I “knew” is that I have a long way to go before I can actually hang out the professional blogger shingle.  So I continue as a willing apprentice.

6.  The shingle I have hung out is “Open for Business.”  In my 2010 business plan, Blog Income Life figures prominently with stated goals and objectives.  One good thing about having kept track of my journey thus far is that I have data which I am using as my starting point.

I can honestly say that in the last two months I have learned more and done more here than in the previous nine.

My blog related goals for 2010 are:

1 -     Google PR3 for Blog Income Life by year end

2 -     Launch a project blog that is centered around a newly planned trip to China in June … it is both a human interest blog and based on a significant but not well known historical event.  My intention is twofold:

One:  for the interest, learning and my roots.

Two: to draw attention and gain interest from print media to publish my experience/story/visit to China, carriers for contra air in exchange for an article or two for their in flight magazine and ad sponsors on the blog.  In short, I am looking to fund the trip.  I am very late getting into this game, but only recently learned of the pivotal event that is drawing me to China.  The goal is scary, the journey sure to be enjoyable, time will be my biggest challenge.  I also anticipate enormous growth … and some hair tearing along with it!

Thank you for allowing me to share my musings of the past, the current and the future.  Please share yours with me.

To Your Awesome Blog Income Life!

Valentina

I think the cheese will have to be shelved for 2010

A guru offers a free CD or book or something that needs to be shipped and all you need to do is pay for the shipping.  Next thing you know, you get a whopping $97 or more charged to your credit card and suddenly your blog income business has a debit line entry.  Outside of the internet world this is known as negative billing and companies that employ this tactic fall under heavy fire.

Last week when I attended the Financial Meetup, John Chow

John Chow & Bernadette Giet of Wealthy Wilmas

spoke briefly about just this very subject – which can be even more insidious than I thought.  At least the offerings that come into your and my inbox have a respected name attached to them and the long sales letter that roped you in in the first place does mention that you can cancel at any time.

It is the trial period of time that I have an issue with – sometimes as short as 7 days.

But what if your keyword search landed you on just such a sales letter on the open world wide web.  No identity, no respected name behind, just a freebie offer that requires your credit card number and then whamo!  An unexpected charge for a substantial amount on your card.  According to John there are plenty of such freebies with negative billing programs out there, and, as he put it “just try and cancel.”

Having fallen prey to negative billing on more than one occasion the practice has left a bad taste in my mouth.  Of course you can get the freebie and cancel immediately after.  Most people don’t.  I know that when I purchase a freebie, I want to read or listen to the CD or watch the video before deciding on the continuity program.

My thinking here is that these gurus might get the first month’s continuity fee, perhaps even the second, but after that the attrition is significant.  I have heard it whispered in the  hollowed halls of the internet marketing world that the average life of a forced continuity member is four months.  Is it worth ticking off a whole lot of people just to get the 4 months of fees?  Doesn’t sound like the best way to build an online income.

Have you had any experience with forced continuity programs?  What are your thoughts.  Should the freeloader just suck it up when the charge appears on the credit card statement?  Is the onus on the new “subscriber” or should there be a box for an optional check mark to become a continuity member?

To Your Awesome Blog Income Life!

Valentina

Forced continuity programs?  Stinky Cheese!

Sundays are catch up mornings for me.  Typically it’s the time I spend catching up on the little things in my e.box, you know non blog income items flagged but not urgent, jokes, Facebook and Twitter announcements of new followers or invites to become friends – ok, the last two could be Blog Income items, but you get the idea, it’s not a blogging for money day.

I give myself two hours – what doesn’t get attended to suffers the fate of the delete key. I give myself another hour to go over my Google Reader and read up on items of interest that I may have I missed on my daily scan of this service.  After that it’s a day off.  Today, maybe dim sum in Richmond and then a walk by the bay – yes, even in the rain.

The first item that caught my eye this morning was a post by Darren Rowse of ProBlogger.  I don’t know how I missed this earlier.  I am a raving fan of his.  It is an article on story posts on his blog.  His observation is that over the years the posts that told stories were the most popular. That is not surprising as stories engage the reader.  It is that rule we learned in sales:  facts tell stories sell.  You can read the full article here

The post got me thinking.  I prefer writing stories over technical reports and have enormous admiration for those who can present good, clear facts without much froufrou and still keep the reader engaged.  I had such a challenge this week.

Recently I was invited to author a chapter for an upcoming book.  It was on a subject I know well but the publisher asked for a slightly different twist on it.  For weeks I had the devil of a time trying to manipulate the information in such a way that it would mesh with the new angle.  Writer’s block loomed large as deadline date drew closer.  What to do.  What I had in my computer was dull and boring even to me.  How could I expect others to read it. How could I let the publisher down?

Then I had an idea.  What if I approached the angle from a storyline?  I phoned the publisher and told him what I had in mind.  I can tell you his response wasn’t exactly extatic.  “Sure” he said tentatively “send me a few paragraphs and the rest of the content in point format.  I did.

Suddenly my creative juices began to flow.  I finished the chapter in two days.  Had it reviewed by a friend who said she was galvanized every step of the way. Submitted it just under the wire.

Haven’t heard back from the publisher yet.  I think he’ll like it.  If not it’s not a bad piece of work and I can certainly put it to use in some other way.

Stories are easier to write, at least for me and for most people.  When you think about it blogs started with stories, that’s what a journal is, it is the daily story of something, often that of a personal experience.  The next time you are faced with writer’s block dig deep into your own experiences and fish out those that have a connection with the topic on which you write, guaranteed, your fingers will start flying over your keypad and you’ll be one step closer to an awesome blog income life!

Happy Blogging!

Valentina
Blogging for some good cheese.