Steve Wagenheim’s Home Business Blog

There are a lot of questions that get asked quite often by people who run their own home business. One of them is this one. “How can I make $100 a day?” I don’t know why $100 seems to be the magic goal line, but it is. Maybe because it’s a nice round number. Maybe it’s because $99 sounds so “bargain basement.” Whatever the reason is, this question gets asked a lot. Well, read this article and you’ll get a straight forward, no nonsense, right to the point answer. Well, kind of right to the point.

First thing you need to understand, and if you get nothing else out of this article, get this…there is no ONE way to make any kind of money online. If you’re running a home business, the options available to you are virtually unlimited. But for the sake of keeping this article somewhat within the realm of readability, I’m not going to go into all the different things you can get into but instead, I am going to take a different direction.

Let’s say, for argument sake, that you decide to tackle a specific niche with your home business. You set up your site, complete with product and everything else you need and find, without too much trouble, that you can earn $10 a day. That’s not a lot of money by any means. Would you agree? Okay, but it’s nowhere near $100 a day. However, you find that reaching that level with your current niche would take an enormous amount of work. So why not do this instead.

Instead of trying to build THAT niche up to a $100 a day business, start a completely different niche while your first niche is essentially running yourself and get THAT one up to $10 a day. Certainly that can’t be very hard to do. Now, look what just happened. Your $10 a day home business is now bringing in $20 a day. Do you see where I am going with this? If you set up 10 different niches that all make just $10 a day, which is NOT hard to do, you are up to $100 a day in income. See how easy it is?

Don’t want to do 10 niches? Fine, do 5 niches and get each one up to $20 a day. Certainly $20 a day can’t be that hard to achieve. My point is, there are many different ways to make $100 a day without having to have it all come from ONE source. Diversify your efforts, like I do, and you can make more money than you’ve ever dreamed of.

I hope this article has given you some inspiration to get out there and do it. As you can see, you don’t have to create a monster site bringing in tons of cash each day. A bunch of little sites can do the job just fine.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Looking for a solid 4 step plan to building your own business… FREE? Pick up my free report at http://www.stevewagenheim.com/4steps.html and get started TODAY!

You’ve probably read the title of this article and said to yourself, “Huh? I don’t want a long cut. I want a shortcut. What’s the point?” Well, keep reading and you’ll get the point.

Okay, let me ask you a question. Did you ever try to do what I call a live PC screen video? For example, you’re trying to walk somebody through a process like how to buy a domain at GoDaddy. So you take them through the entire process, in real time.

All of a sudden, you click on the next link in the process and your Internet connection hangs. And there you are speaking into your Camtasia fumbling around for words to say while your PC tries to connect to the Internet. It can get to be real awkward and unprofessional in the presentation. And then of course there are those instances where you type in a password and it’s the wrong password. Yeah…that looks real professional.

Truth is, when doing a video live, things can go wrong. And trust me, they WILL go wrong. I’ve learned this from personal experience. Well, there is a way to make sure your “live” PC videos come off without a hitch and no errors or mishaps. However, in order to make this happen, you need to take what I call a long cut.

Here is the step by step process. It takes a little longer to create the video, but it’s worth the effort.

Step 1 – Take a screen print of each web page you’re discussing. This way, load time doesn’t come into play. Make sure any typing that needs to be done is already on the page.

Step 2 – Bring screen print into editor and add any arrows or other graphics that you feel are needed.

Step 3 – Import each screen print into Powerpoint, creating a new slide for each one. A simple “insert picture” will overlay the screen print onto the blank Powerpoint slide.

Step 4 – Write out the script for each slide in a Word Doc and then print it out.

Step 5 – Go through the Powerpoint presentation adding the narration. You won’t have to stumble over any words because the script is right there in front of you.

Step 6 – Import into Camtasia and produce in whatever format you want.

By doing this, you don’t have to worry about any of those annoying “live” things that might pop up.

Slow load time
Forgotten passwords
Results you didn’t expect
Expired coupons (for demonstrating GoDaddy domain buying)

And so on.

By going through the process beforehand and capturing each screen as you get to it, you virtually eliminate any problems you might run into.

Try it. You might find that you like this much better than recording live.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Want to find out how to create killer videos like my friend Kevin Riley and rake in a 6 figure income like he and I do? Check out my review of his dynamite product at my blog at http://stevenwagenheim.blogspot.com/2008/06/kevin-rileys-recipe-for-success.html

Okay, so Christmas is over, New Years is over, the weekend is over, it’s time to get back to work…

And it’s the absolute LAST thing you want to do.

Join the club. When I woke up this morning, I almost dreaded having to get back to my business after essentially taking a whole week off. So what do you do when the LAST thing you want to do is attend to your business? Well, I’m going to tell you what I do. This may or may not help you, as everybody is different, but if you’re anything like me, it should do the trick.

First thing I do is make a game of it. I play the reward game. I do something for my business and then I do something for myself. It could be something simple like getting a snack out of the fridge. Maybe I’ll take a run to the store and buy myself something. I might go visit my friend Steve who owns a comic shop and by some Magic The Gathering Cards. But I’ll do something to give me incentive to get my work done.

It doesn’t end there. See, sometimes incentives just aren’t enough, especially when you essentially have everything that you could possibly want. So when that happens, I think about my family. I think about how much they’re depending on me to bring home the bacon. Doing something for yourself is one thing, but when you have others who depend on you, it’s a whole new ballgame.

And if that doesn’t do the trick, I think back to when I first started my own home business back in 2003. I think about how I was out of work and on the verge of being homeless. I think about the early struggles with my business and how I made only $28 in my first five months. When I think about those days, I realize that I don’t want to EVER go back to them. That gives me the incentive to work hard on my business. That’s what keeps me motivated.

Like I said…everybody is different. The above might not work for you. I don’t know. Essentially, what YOU have to do is find YOUR inspiration. Maybe it’s that brand new car you want to buy. Maybe it’s a trip you’re dying to take that you don’t have the money for. Whatever it is, find it and tack it up on a wall if you have to. Remind yourself each day that if you DON’T do your work, you won’t get the things you want.

It’s one way to keep yourself from falling into the “I’m done with this stuff” trap.

Because it’s very easy to fall into.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Looking for a solid 4 step plan to building your own business…FREE? Pick up my free report at http://www.stevewagenheim.com/4steps.html and get started TODAY!

I hope that this article gets you thinking, at least just a little bit, about the impression that you give your prospects and other marketers. If you’re wondering where I got the inspiration for this article, it was from a friend of mine over at the Warrior Forum. His name is Caliban Darklock, and he is one very bright dude. Hopefully, you will get as much as out of this article as I got from his forum thread.

In a nutshell, Caliban started a thread thanking a few people who he doesn’t normally talk about on the forum but realized that maybe he should have. These are all people who have helped him in some way. And that got me thinking. And when I start thinking, watch out. My mind can sometimes go in all different directions. Anyway, try to follow where I’m coming from here.

Let’s face it, we’re all a little egotistical. Most successful people have big egos.And there is nothing wrong with that. If you don’t think anything of yourself, who else is going to? However, there is a fine line between believing in yourself and thinking that you’re the be all and end all. Truth is, and I don’t care how bright you are, nobody got to where they are all by themselves. In fact, you’d be surprised how many people have influenced you along the way.

For starters, how about your parents? They did raise you after all. Hopefully, they taught you something about values. But it doesn’t end there. Not even close. What about your teachers in school? They certainly taught you something, though some probably more than others. What about the other marketers that you learned from over the course of time that you’ve been marketing online. You certainly weren’t born with all this knowledge.

We tend to forget that we don’t live in a bubble, and that each person who we come in contact with affects our lives in some way. Some good, and some not so good. But make no mistake about it…everything that we go through in life helps shape us.

One last thing. No matter how successful you are, and no matter how much of it you THINK you did on your own, when the day comes that you’ve gone back to the dust that you came from, nobody is going to be able to tell the difference between you and the guy who didn’t have a penny to his name.

So the next time you think you’re the greatest thing since sliced bread, remember…you didn’t get there all by yourself. And if you remember that, you’ll strike just the right balance between confidence and humbleness so that you’re prospects and fellow marketers don’t think you’re the biggest jerk since Steve Martin.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Tired of spinning your wheels trying to get your marketing off the ground? Haven’t got a clue what you’re doing and sick of being dead broke? Why not get some solid mentoring from somebody who has been EXACTLY where you are today? Check out my mentoring program at http://www.stevewagenheim.com/mentoring/mentoring.html and finally get yourself the one on one education that can FINALLY give you the success that you’ve been looking for.

Let me start out by saying that this article is a spoof so that nobody gets all crazy and starts a world wide panic. There is NO original content penalty, though sometimes you’d think there was. However, there is a very important message in this article that, if you’re smart, you’ll get. And if you’re reading this, then I know you’re smart. Anyway, here goes.

The other day, over at the Warrior Forum, Bill Platt, who I am convinced should have probably been a comedy writer, started a thread saying that Matt Cutts (he’s got something to do with Google) was hinting that there was going to be a new algorithm change over at Google where there would now be an original content penalty. In other words, and in plain English, if you had original content on your site that was seen nowhere else online, it would be buried in the SERPs. However, if you just scraped your content off of some blog or whatever, you’d be at the top of the SERPs.

Now before you write this off as just a big joke, think about this. Go look up a current news story at Google and take a look at all the news sites that are reporting the same story with the exact same content. And yet, they’re all at the top of the SERPs. Duplicate content doesn’t seem to be hurting them much. Conversely, if you had a brand new site reporting the same story, but in completely different words, do you think you’d be anywhere NEAR the top of the SERPs? I seriously doubt it. So yeah, while Bill Platt was joking around, there is some truth to the way SERPs work. If you have an authority site that’s recognized, you can put up nothing BUT duplicated content and still rank high.

Okay, where is the lesson in all this? Well, some people read the thread that Bill started and took it seriously. Some were even concerned about it. Now, imagine that somebody…ANYBODY…took this thread and reported it on their blog. Or better yet, just started spreading this rumor. Do you not think that EVENTUALLY it would take on a life of its own? How do you think the duplicate content penalty myth got started in the first place? That’s right…somebody started an unsubstantiated rumor. And make no mistake about it…there is NO duplicate content penalty. Google has confirmed this, though there are still people who believe otherwise.

Point is, before you believe ANYTHING that ANYBODY tells you, test it for yourself.

Not everything you read on the Internet is true.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

If you want to discover the REAL truth about Internet marketing and get some solid tips to take your business to the next level…get my free report at http://www.stevewagenheim.com/realtruth.html and subscribe to my REAL Truth newsletter where you’ll discover more than from all those high priced ebooks combined.

There is no question…the world is looking for a speedy solution to everything. And for those looking to start a home business, it’s no different. Everybody wants to start on Monday and have the money pouring in on Tuesday. But how long DOES it take to create a successful home business? A week, a month, a year? What’s the magic number? Is there a magic number? If you’re looking for an answer to this question, you might want to read the rest of this article. However, you might not like the answer you get.

I guess the thing that makes me chuckle the most is this. If you were to start a business in the brick and mortar world, you’d probably have to wait two years before you got out of the red. Heck, most new businesses fold up shop long before that. And yet, here you are, starting a home business and royally ticked off because it’s been two months and you haven’t seen a profit. Yeah, I get a real chuckle out of this.

Okay, here is the answer that you’re not going to like. How long does it take to create a successful home business? As long as it takes for you to do the following:

1. Find a niche and a hungry buying market with money to spend on a solution to a problem that they’re having.

2. Find or create a product or service that solves that problem. If you can’t find one or one doesn’t exist, you either have to create it yourself or hire somebody to create it for you.

3. Develop an ad campaign that will effectively reach that target market and convey the benefits of purchasing the solution from you and NOT from your competitors.

4. Continue doing this on an ongoing basis, making sure that you keep up with current trends in the market and/or changes…ensuring that you stay one step ahead of your competition.

I could keep going but I think you get the point. For some people, the above is a piece of cake. They can do it in their sleep. They’ve tapped into just the right market and have just the right product. They can write ads that make Madison Avenue jealous. For others, the above is near impossible either because they don’t have the education, the money, or both.

Wherever you fall in that mix, make no mistake about it…creating a successful home business takes a lot of work. How hard you’re willing to work and how much work you’re willing to put in will greatly determine how successful you’ll be and how quickly that success will come.

Like I said, not the answer you wanted to hear.

Were you really surprised?

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Looking for a solid 4 step plan to building your own business…FREE? Pick up my free report at http://www.stevewagenheim.com/4steps.html and get started TODAY!

Think about this for a second. Back when you were a kid (assuming you’re as old as me or older) if somebody had said to you that people would pay money for water in a bottle, you probably would have thought that they were crazy. Certainly you would have never thought that it would become the multi billion dollar industry that it’s become today. Okay, so what’s my point? Well, keep reading this article and I think you’ll get my point.

Our story begins with John Doe, Internet marketer. John has this really crazy idea to sell, well, whatever it may be. It’s never been sold before, at least not on a wide scale. He’s thinking to himself, “This is never going to sell. Nobody is ever going to pay money for this, especially if it’s something that they can get for free.” Therein lies the rub to selling things freely available, which water is.

But now sit down and think about WHY we buy bottled water, even though we could just go to the sink and pour a glass for ourselves. We buy it because of the supposed benefit of bottled water, such as the “fact” that it’s cleaner than the water that comes out of our sink. Well, that’s what they tell us anyway. This stuff is supposed to come from the finest springs of wherever. Truth be told, a lot of it comes from your least favorite river in a city near you. But nobody will tell you that or even admit to it.

Point is, we want to believe that bottled water is better than the stuff that comes out of our sink, so we buy it. Now don’t get me wrong here. I’m not telling you to come up with some phony cure all for whatever the popular disease of the day is and peddle it like it’s some miracle. But if you do a little thinking outside of the box, you can come up with a number of products that, though they may be available for free out in nature or out on the Internet, people will pay good money for.

Take “how to make money” info products. A lot of this info IS available for free online IF you just take the time to look for it. Ah…but that’s one of the selling points of paid for ebooks…the time saving aspect. The buyer doesn’t HAVE to go searching all over creating to find this information. He’s paying to have it delivered right to his hard drive. No fuss…no muss. Now, if one’s time isn’t worth anything, then they’ll go the “search for it” route. But somebody like me, who values his time, will pay for the information…even though I know I COULD find it for free.

So before you discount a product idea just because you think people wouldn’t pay money for it, think back to water and bottled water specifically. When I was 10 years old, if you had told me people would have paid money for a bottle of water, I would have told you that they were nuts.

I have since come to realize that I couldn’t have been more wrong.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Sick and tired of spinning your wheels trying to make a buck online? Visit the products page of my blog at http://stevewagenheim.com/blog/products and get a 6 figure education for pennies.

I ran across a forum post today that really got me thinking? Actually, it was just the title of the thread that got me thinking. “Is it possible to make $1,500 a year?” Now think about that question for just a moment, especially if you’re a fairly successful Internet marketer and possibly making that much, or more, in a week. Think about this person’s idea of what reality is? He can’t even fathom making $1,500 in a year. How hard do you think it will be for him to actually earn that much if he’s wondering if it’s even possible.

Okay, you’re probably wondering where I’m going with this. Well, to make it a lot more clear, let’s take something a lot less probable, at least 100 years ago. Let’s take traveling to the moon and actually having a man walk on the moon. At the beginning of the 20th century, and even long after, this was pure science fiction. Think about how many movies were made of man going into space. Now, it’s something we take for granted. Back then, if somebody had asked “Is it possible to walk on the moon” they would have been laughed at.

Here is my point, and no this isn’t another power of positive thinking rah, rah, rah article. This has to do with man’s perception of what’s possible and what’s impossible or at least very unlikely. We all have our little barriers that we put up. I have mine just like everybody else. For me, it’s making millions per year, at least not with my current marketing model. It’s not going to happen. I’ll make a nice living with it, but millions? Not a prayer in the world…or so I believe. But the truth is, all I need is one truly unique idea to go viral and I can easily turn my business into seven figures. I just don’t believe it’s possible right now.

And that is ultimately what stops most people from reaching their full potential. They see a specific goal as being so far fetched that they don’t believe, even for a second, that it’s possible. So they shoot for something that they believe is attainable. That forum poster is hoping for at least $1,500 a year. Trust me…if he makes that much, it will be a miracle. The body can only achieve what the mind can comprehend. If you don’t believe can fly, you won’t fly.

So take a look at your goals. Are they realistic or conservative? You may not have enough knowledge to know the answer to that question. So ask others. Tell them what your marketing plan is. See what the experts think of it.

You may have more potential there than you realize.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Tired of spinning your wheels trying to get your marketing off the ground? Haven’t got a clue what you’re doing and sick of being dead broke? Why not get some solid mentoring from somebody who has been EXACTLY where you are today? Check out my mentoring program at http://www.stevewagenheim.com/mentoring/mentoring.html and finally get yourself the one on one education that can FINALLY give you the success that you’ve been looking for.

You’re probably wondering what prompted me to write this article. Well, don’t worry…I’m going to tell you shortly. But what I want you to think about right now is the answer to this very simple question. When you see the finish line dead ahead and know you’re almost there, do you push even harder to get your project done or do you slack off a little, knowing that you’re almost there? If the answer is the latter, you might want to read this article.

Okay, let me first answer the question as to what prompted me to even write this article. Well, I’m in the Ezine Articles 100 article challenge. And while I passed 100 articles around day 50, I’m working toward the 200 article goal. As of this article, I had only three more articles to write with about 7 days to go. Certainly I can see the finish line ahead and could afford to slack off and still reach 200 articles. Heck, I could write an article every other day and still make the 200. So why don’t I slack off? Why have I decided to push it hard and finish all my articles today?

It’s called human nature and it’s something that gets the best of everybody. When confronted with something that you have to do, if that task doesn’t have to be completed for several weeks or even months, you tend to put it off. I think we call that procrastination. The problem is, when we do that, we tend to get lazy. We figure that since we have all the time in the world, there is no need to kill ourselves. Problem is, and I’ll take my last three articles as an example, if we do that, sometimes we don’t ever get back to what we have to do.

What happens then is this, and I am speaking from experience. Again, take my three articles. Let’s say I decided that I didn’t need to write today. I had 7 days to write three articles and didn’t need to kill myself. What would happen is this. On day two, I still have 6 days left…so there is still no urgency. So I put it off another day. And this keeps going until all of a sudden, it’s the final day and I have three articles to write on the last day in order to make my 200 articles. Now I have to push myself anyway to get them done. However, this is one difference.

Pushing to get the articles done early makes it so that there’s no real pressure. You can relax. The ideas will come easier. Pushing to get them done on the last day puts so much pressure on you that it makes it difficult to concentrate. It’s not so easy to write those three articles, not to mention that it makes the experience less than pleasurable.

Take it from me, when you see that finish line…push to get to it.

The alternative is less than pleasant.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Tired of spinning your wheels trying to get your marketing off the ground? Haven’t got a clue what you’re doing and sick of being dead broke? Why not get some solid mentoring from somebody who has been EXACTLY where you are today? Check out my mentoring program at http://www.stevewagenheim.com/mentoring/mentoring.html and finally get yourself the one on one education that can FINALLY give you the success that you’ve been looking for.

It’s funny how a lot of people think that they’re in charge of things when they’re really not and just a pawn in someone else’s game. If you’re running your own home business and think you’re in charge of things, you might want to read this article. It might give you a whole new perspective on the issue.

Let me start off by saying that the idea for this article came from yet another Warrior Forum thread which really didn’t have anything to do with running a home business or being in charge of things. But it made me realize that by depending on others, we sometimes put our fate in their hands and effectively makes it so that we’re not really in charge at all.

The thread in question had to do with Clickbank and slumping sales. Seems that a lot of affiliates are reporting a significant drop in sales the last couple of weeks. Now, while that could very well have to do with the fact that Christmas is coming up and people are broke, think about this for a moment if you will.

As an affiliate of a product, you REALLY have very little control. The creator of the product makes all decisions about price, sales copy and so on. All you can do is promote it and hope for the best. However, as a product creator, you are in control of the whole process from the actual product and price all the way down to the last PS on that sales letter. On top of that, you can have OTHER affiliates help promote your product. Now THAT is control.

And you can apply this to just about anything. Take an autoresponder service. You are at their mercy as to how and when emails get delivered and how long you’re able to even keep your account. I have heard many horror stories of people losing their Aweber accounts because of some TOS infraction. Now, if you had your OWN autoresponder on your own server, that’s control.

However, with control comes a price…and at times a heavy price. You have more responsibility and more risk when you have more control. With your own product, there is more to do. The product creation process can be an excruciating one and take weeks if not months to complete. Salescopy, if you can’t write it yourself, can cost a fortune. With an autoresponder on your own server, enough spam complaints and your ISP can shut you down.

So ultimately, it comes down to how much control you’re willing to give up in order to minimize your risk and work load. Yes, it’s a balancing act. For example, I’ll create my own products but I won’t use an autoresponder on my own server.

But take a look at your home business and see how much of it you’re REALLY in control of.

The answer might surprise you.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Looking for a solid 4 step plan to building your own business…FREE? Pick up my free report at http://www.stevewagenheim.com/4steps.html and get started TODAY!