Calling All Entrepreneurs

If you are on the startup roller coaster then you have experienced exhilarating highs and devastating lows, sometimes on the same day.  Join with other young companies who are facing the same challenges you are, network with other founders and startup employees for support, advice, and to try some cool new products and services.  Join the Startup America Partnership today - http://ar.gy/inkwhy.

Startup America recognizes that young companies are the drivers of our economy and wants to provide valuable resources to build and strengthen regional startup ecosystems.  The Startup America Partnership was launched from the White House on Jan 31, 2011 with AOL co-founder Steve Case as chairman and with the Kauffman Foundation as a founding sponsor.  By joining the Startup America Partnership, you will have access to the following:

• Free and discounted resources to help you grow your business, such as free software for accounting and planning that can lower your costs for advertising and marketing
• A network of over 8,000 startup founders just like you from across the country
• Local and national connections through regional ecosystems run by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs
• Connections to startup experts through virtual learning sessions, a resource library, and live events
• Publicity for your startup through contests, blog posts, and social media

The Startup America Partnership works on a regional basis with local entrepreneurs to help them strengthen their local entrepreneurial community.  We need your help to get Startup NJ going.  This is a community-driven initiative led by entrepreneurs, and we want to collect some information about what you feel our region needs to help you become more successful, so please take 10 minutes and complete our survey: 

                   http://startupnj.questionpro.com

We welcome all regional entrepreneurs to join the Startup NJ Leadership Team.  If interested, send an email to startupnj@gmail.com and be sure to register to join Startup America at http://ar.gy/inkwhy.

We look forward to working with you to make NJ the best place to grow and establish new businesses.

Sincerely,

Your Startup NJ Leadership Team

Good question. If you're asking this question, then you probably already understand some of the positive benefits of blogging (it allows you to share information that only you know, it's easy to create posts and quickly publish them online, and search engines will find your content and make it easier for others to find you -- allowing you to better reach your target audience). You may also know that in your blog posts, you should try to use key words that relate to your particular area of expertise of interest, e.g., social media consulting, online marketing, small businesses, entrepreneurs -- so that search engines will more effectively capture your content. 

So back to the question, how to find the time for blogging... As with finding time to do anything, you need to set it aside. You may need to find a babysitter one evening so you can focus on writing. You may also need to put it in your schedule and block off your calendar. For example, write a blog post the first thing in the morning or before you eat lunch. Aim for posting at least once a week. If you make the time to blog consistently, then you will reach your audience more regularly. Fresh content will catch more fish (in other words, you will be able to attract more potential customers if you provide timely information).

Think about following a "Social Media Diet," a process that we're recommending for anyone who wants to streamline their activity online and make the most of social media. As we are currently looking at The Dukan Diet to help with our own weight loss goals, we came up with a matching four-step process to help you get to where you want to be in terms of online usage and social media.

1. Social Media Attack Phase: Spend a short period of intense focus on key Internet tools, eliminating the "extraneous"
   
2. Social Media Cruise Phase: Introduce additional computer activities, but still primarily use core, productive tools
3. Social Media Consolidation Phase: Bring back some of your old Internet habits, but structure your time carefully 
4. Social Media Stabilization Phase: Give yourself more freedom to do what you want on the WWW, but keep some of the new good habits that you've learned -- and look for expert support and guidance to keep you on the right track

Key aspects of these phases are maintaining consistency and maximizing your time and resources. 

In Phase 1, you'll want to eliminate time spent on things that are not productive (shopping and browsing online stores, playing games, chatting, etc.) and focus on learning all you can about how to use social media and online tools to accomplish your goals -- which might include increasing the revenue for your business, creating more awareness of your brand, finding out more about what your clients want, and reaching more prospects. Depending on what your goals are, spend 100% of your time online and on social media doing activities that will help you get closer to what you want to achieve from a business perspective. These activities can include: educating yourself about the tools available at sites like Social Media Examiner, working on a blog with content that will differentiate yourself from your competitors, posting information and interacting with your contacts in meaningful ways on the most popular social media channels (Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter). Also, set up an auto-responder and opt-in service such as the one offered by Aweber (example of an email opt-in box is at the top right of this blog) so you can better manage your business contacts and begin connecting your email promotions and newsletters with your social media activity.

In Phase 2, work on other building up your repertoire online, creating additional accounts on less widely used social media sites and looking for other ways to make new connections. For example, explore the directory at Mevvy, a resource that features a collection of powerful Internet tools.

In Phase 3, you can start doing some of the other fun, but not-so-productive activities that you eliminated in Phase 1, but keep it  at a minimum (e.g., allot yourself an hour twice a week). 

In Phase 4, you can spend the time however you would like online, but maintain a cadence with your productive social media and Internet activity (e.g., posting some new content at least once every other day), and allot a regular time at least once a week to focus on the intense activity and tools that you learned in Phases 1 and 2.

Finally, consider hiring a Social Media "Personal Coach," or someone who can offer customized, online business consulting. It will free up your time to do what you do best (selling your products, offering another type of service, or whatever else you do). By outsourcing Social Media set-up and maintenance tasks, you may be better able to leverage the power of the Internet. 

If you are feeling like you're being gorged with information overload, try our "Social Media Diet" -- and register to get access to additional resources to help support you. For a limited time, new registrants on our site will receive a personal email and offer for a free 30-minute social media phone consultation tailored just for you and your business. 
Sign up below:

Dollars tend to get people's attention. When you're in a meeting, if you pull a hundred dollar bill out of your pocket, crinkle it around a bit, then you'll likely get some heads to turn. If you offer to give it to someone who comes up with the best idea, you'll also likely get plenty of suggestions. 

In this post, we'll discuss several ways you can make money. But before that, we want you to think about... Why do you want to make money? Is it so you can feed your family? So you can buy those shoes that you like? Go on vacation? Pay off your debt? Donate to your favorite charity? Or do you want to invest it back into your business to make more money (and what would you want to do with that "more money")? 

Everyone is at a different stage in his or her life with varying levels of needs and desires that tie in directly with financial concerns and goals. If you are a teenager, your goal may be to save up money to buy a car (and you may not need any other money, as your basic needs may be met by your parents and other family members). On the other hand, if you're a parent and trying to support a family with wages that don't quite make ends meet, then your goal may be to find an alternative source of income to supplement your current salary. Another scenario might be that you are a business owner, and you make enough earnings to support a comfortable lifestyle -- but you are devoted to growing your company and you want to take it to the next level. Whatever stage you are in, you can review the list of options below for how you can "make" money -- and you can decide which way(s) will help you get you to where you want to be.

1. Ask for money (come up with a good reason for someone to give you money, think of who you can persuade, and start asking around): This option likely requires you to give the money back at some future point in time.
2. Find a task that others are willing to pay you to do (examples include: mowing or raking lawns, shoveling snow, babysitting, tutoring, designing web sites, selling knives): These are all things that we've done ourselves and, in order to exercise this option, you'll need to develop the skills to do it and also find the people who are willing to pay you to do it.
3. Accept a job where an employer compensates you (this is very similar to the second option just mentioned, but instead of having to find the customers, you may be given clients to work with and trained to do the work by your employer): In this scenario, like in the second one, you generally get paid for the hours that you put in to do the work.
4. Participate in a network marketing company (sometimes these are known as multi-level-marketing or MLM companies, but there are diverse ways these companies are structured): You get paid to sell a product that a MLM company has developed. Also when you introduce additional sellers to the company, you can earn a percentage of their sales. Varieties of this option include going to informational meetings and bringing potential members to those meetings, conducting direct sales presentations to your target buyer, having home parties where guests buy the product and the host or hostess earns free product, etc. As with options 2 and 3, it's usually the amount of time you spend selling the product and building your team that is directly correlated with your earning potential (some companies are structured to allow participants to earn "residual" income where you can continue to earn from your team sales even when your own sales have slowed down).
5. Write a book (and sell it): Once the book is written, you can either try to sell copies yourself, or work with a publisher to sell it -- and you can earn royalties, or a percentage of each copy that is sold. This is most similar to option 2 above. Although, if your book takes off, it can also generate alternate sources of income (e.g., sales from bobbleheads of the characters, or revenue from movies like Harry Potter).
6. Develop affiliate partnerships (create a website and develop some interesting content to share, and introduce "affiliates" to your readers): As with this blog, you can set up one of your own and showcase your expertise to draw in an audience. Once you have built up a following, you can share with them an offering that appeals to them, and you will make money from any sales that are generated from your promotions.
7. Invest your money (you can put your money into a range of different types of investments): You may have heard that you need money to make money. However, depending on how risky your investments are, you may actually end up losing money rather than earning it. Consider short-term and long-term outlooks when deciding where to invest your money, and please note that we are not giving an investment advice  (we are NOT suggesting that you invest or not invest -- that's completely up to you and whoever you are working with who is qualified to provide investment advice).
8. Build a brand new company (we like this idea the best because that is what we are trying to do here): In this scenario, you come up with a brilliant idea or a solution to a problem that will help a specific audience. Then, you attract that audience to you by spreading the word about your idea or solution once it's available for them to access. Voila! You can then make money from the profits that are generated by the company. As with option 7, there are some risks associated with this option as the money you spend to build this company can end up being lost if nobody wants to use your services or buy your product. However, if you're excited about creating a company and have the motivation to tackle the challenges, then this option may be for you. And if you have no money to start your own company, consider using any of the above steps to supplement your ability to Launch (book for entrepreneurs by Mike Stelzner)! Or if you already have your own company, you may want to think of brand new ideas or solutions that you can add to your current repertoire so that you can expand even further and make that "more money" to will help you attain your ultimate goals.

Robert Kiyosaki in his "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" books has described individuals as being in one of four quadrants: Employee, Self-employed worker, Business owner and Investor. To find out more about what category you fall under, and access some of his great resources, you can register for a free "Rich Dad PowerPack." We aren't making any money by sharing these links in this post, but we just think they're valuable tools that can help you expand your vision and grow your business.

Good luck, and see you at the top!