A few moths back, the husband & wife team of Justin Lee & Dreama Lee were Guest Panelists at the last JV Alert Live that was held in San Diego, CA.

Their course, Intern Profits, is a training course that teaches employees how to recruit Interns, and teaches Interns specific jobs (tasks).

Well, this weekend (only) is a 1/2 price sale for their training course to commemorate & honor Black Friday & Small Business Saturday.

Check it out.

Intern Profits Black Friday/Small Business Saturday Sale.

Traffic = Money.

Today, I want to touch on the fast-growing way to increase traffic to your website - using Social Media.

See Video below...

Getting Social... that's what it's all about.

Making Connections, having an impact on someone's life, etc.

So why do I hear complaints from a lot from newbies AND so-called veterans  that "this junk isn't working", who still can't make money online?

They get bitter because they think it's all about selling junky products to total strangers and they think the only people who can "make it" are creeps and cons.

Here's the proof that they're full of it!

Traffic Geyser's Social Media Marketing Machines

This video shows how regular old folks have been able to position themselves as the online EXPERTS in their communities and begin real business success by HELPING others.

Yeah, that's right critics!

REAL businesses with REAL clients making REAL money...

And this is a built-in market desperate for help, and a built-in service that gives them exactly what they need, and an automated system that lets you sit back and rake it in!

(I tried REALLY hard not to make this sound too good to be true, but whether you're ready or not, you MUST watch this video.)

Traffic Geyser's Social Media Marketing Machines

-Kevin

P.S. A previous power company employee and his partner built a multiple six figure business in 8 months with this, and they're not the only ones on this video!

Traffic Geyser's Social Media Marketing Machines

Traffic.

That's what all websites need.

But, who (in my audience/crowd/sphere of influence) are you?

Why, the small business owner, of course!

How would you like to learn how to increase traffic to your business?

Duh. of course you would....

So, let me offer you this course from an acquaintance of mine.

Check this out...

Jeff Jonson's Traffic Voodoo 2.0 ...

There are currently 176 video tutorials waiting for you the minute you join the Traffic Voodoo 2.0 Private Membership Site and Coaching Club.

You'll have full and immediate access to every single one of them the very first day you Join Jeff's Traffic Voodoo 2.0: Non-Stop Traffic training program.

That's on top of the hundreds, if not thousands of pages of PDF tutorials ready and waiting for you the very first minute you access "Traffic Voodoo 2.0: Non-Stop Traffic".

And Traffic Voodoo 2.0 is an "ongoing" coaching club so they'll be adding new training material for you for the next year, probably even longer.

Which means by the time you are done with your Traffic Voodoo 2.0: Non-Stop training… you'll literally have hundreds of videos, mp3s,  and potentially thousands of page of content to download so you can keep them as part of your permanent "online training" library.

But  don't freak out on me yet… I know it all sounds overwhelming, but it's not.

Here's why:

1. When you join today Jeff is giving you a free Lifetime Membership Upgrade to Traffic Voodoo 2.0 which means you'll have plenty of time to access and download all of the training material.

2. Jeff's personal team of "doers" (the guys who do this stuff for him every day)  are in the "forums" almost every single day and they are willing to tell you exactly where to go to get started, how to put our strategies to best use in your own business, and help you whenever you get stuck.

3. Jeff will be hosting a series of Live webinars where he updates you on the newest cutting-edge traffic-getting, list-building strategies so you'll know exactly how to turn your new found traffic into money… and he'll answer ever single question you still have on those live training webinars.

But based on the feedback from the hundreds of people who have already decided to join Jeff's Traffic Voodoo 2.0...

They told him a great bonus would be sending them out a DVD set with the entire Traffic Voodoo 2.0 program on it.

So on top of all the personal attention you'll be getting as part of the "Traffic Voodoo 2.0: Non-Stop Traffic" training program…

You'll also get…

Traffic Voodoo 2.0 On DVD:

Here's how it works:

After you've been inside the Traffic Voodoo 2.0 training program for a few months, and after Jeff has had time to create dozens of new training videos, action plans, Cheat Sheets and process diagrams for you…

He'll take every single video (hundreds of them), every single PDF file (hundreds if not thousands of pages) and every single mp3 and burn them all to DVDs for you.

The entire "Traffic Voodoo 2.0: Non-Stop Traffic" Training Program…

Will be burned to DVDs and sent out to you for free as part of your ongoing Traffic Voodoo 2.0: Non-Stop Traffic membership.

That means not only will you have a Lifetime Membership so you can take your time downloading everything when you first join…

You won't even have to since Jeff will be sending it all to you on your Traffic Voodoo 2.0 Bonus DVDs.

So the choice is yours…

Download everything the minute you join the program and access the private membership site…

Or just take your time and wait for your bonus DVDs to arrive.

You can grab your entire bonus package here:

Jeff Johnson's Traffic Voodoo 2.0

And, if you decide to grab Jeff's program through me,

I'll give you...

1 - A choice of The New Amazon Kindle AND a Flip UltraHD Video Camera, or

2 - A Wii Game Console.

You will receive your Bonus Thank You Gift AFTER the Refund and Return time expires.  That's only fair.

So, give Jeff Johnson's Traffic Voodoo 2.0 a try, and if you decide to keep it, you will get some real sweet bonuses.

Thanks for your time!

FTC Disclaimer: Posts written before December 1st, 2009 may include endorsements of products or services that include a material connection to the author. Readers should assume a material connection for any product or service endorsed prior to December 1, 2009.

No matter the amount of market research, forecasting, or operational planning that is conducted prior to the launch of a business, there is still a level of uncertainty, risk, daringness, and even danger that exists in every start up.

Entrepreneurs enjoy the risk, the unknown, the undertaking of starting a business/project and this adventurous attitude also carries over into their personal lives as well (or vice versa).  There are a number of books and articles written about successful adventure entrepreneurs.  These types of men and women have earned a place in pop culture.  People are attracted to their go-getter, anything is possible, creative and entreprenant demeanors as well as their general lack of fear (and laziness).

One of the themes of this blog is the parallel between adventure and entrepreneurship.  In other words if this blog werea superhero it would be a morph between Indiana Jones, Sir Richard Branson, Steve Jobs, Edmund Hillary, Peter Drucker, Howard Hughes, Magellan, Ted Turner, Jay-Z, Michael Porter, Hugh Hefner, Batman . . . and the countless albeit less famous entrepreneurs and small business men of the world.

Let me know what you think of this concept!  Am I alone?  Who else wants to live and entrepreneurial life filled with adventure, fun, and success?  Feel free to comment on this brief article or visit www.Entreprenant.us .  Thank you and good luck.

Because I got to see my parents struggling to make ends meet, and my DJ brother going bankrupt, I learned at a very young age that being an entrepreneur is not easy. Being a successful entrepreneur usually means freedom. Freedom to spend more time with your family, freedom to have more than enough money to spend, freedom to travel, freedom to do what you enjoy doing, and freedom to live in the zone.

However, freedom has a cost, and most entrepreneurs are not willing (or unable) to pay that cost. The cost is not financial, but emotional. The emotional cost of achieving success varies from person to person and business to business. One is rarely similar to the other; when working for someone else you feel safe—but not free, and when you work for yourself, you often feel liberated but not safe; this is similar to when wild animals are kept safe at the zoo.

Starting your own business is easy, persisting and succeeding as a business owner is not. You may come across hard times, whether it's financial trouble, legal issues or other problems that threaten the future success of you and your business. So how do you deal with these problems? What do you have to do to survive them, and how will you conquer the challenges that your business faces during its darkest hour? These tips may help you deal with your current situation, regardless of what it is:

Tip 1: Be Grateful

Yes, I know—this is not another one of those "think positive" statement that teach you to put on your rosy glasses and see everything as sweet, pink and fluffy; no—however, it is true that the most successful people in the world are people who are grateful for what they have and of the cards they hold in life. When I lost my companies and real estate holdings in 2008 I was a wreck; I couldn't believe my luck, when I spoke to my mentor he said something I'll never forget: "You have no problems." I didn't understand. When inquiring further he revealed a truth I had failed to see with my own eyes. "You have eyes, don't you?" he asked. There are more than 3 million legally blind men and women in the United States of America alone, and most of them learn (in time) to deal with their misfortune and move on with their lives. "You have your arms and legs," he continued. "19% of the citizens of the USA cannot walk, did you know that?" I honestly didn't; I quickly learned I didn't really have any problems;

I had so many assets in my life that I was unaware of, I ended up not appreciating them. Only until you lose a leg, arm or an eye will you begin to realize how lucky you were before; 300,000 people died in a tsunami, 3,500 died from disasters in China, people in Israel are being bombed on a daily basis, people of Gaza have no food or water, children in Africa are born without limbs, some are raised with guns between the ages of five and seven years old. People die from diseases, lack of food, lack of pure water, and are struggling every day to survive, while I worry about my bank account, sitting in an air conditioned room with a $3,000 suite, complaining about money.

Today, I am grateful for having my health and the assets that I have, today I regained most of my wealth, and I got out of a bad situation simply because I started to look at things differently. I still cared, I still wanted to be a success, but I learned that it is all a game, and the more "attempts" we make towards success the better players we become.

The only way you can learn to achieve, is if you learn to appreciate the little things: do you have a family that loves you?—if so, use their love to help you through the tough times, use their support to guide you and help you get over difficulties you encounter in your business. Are you an entrepreneur? This may seem like a dumb question, but it is a serious one, if you are an entrepreneur and you made the decision to start your own business you are one of a kind: 95% of the wealth on planet earth is in the hands of entrepreneurs and business owners, so you can consider yourself lucky to have the brains and the guts to go out there and make it on your own… most people just burry their heads in the sand, ignoring the fact that their income is in the hands of someone like you and me.

In conclusion, you are lucky because you have so much. When you wake up in the morning try counting off the things you are grateful for, like all of the things you own (both material and non-material). You will see that the challenges you face as an entrepreneur really are not that bad, in fact, you are lucky to face these challenges, and once you overcome them you will be a better player, after all, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, right?

Tip 2: Love it

If you study every wealthy and successful person in the world, you will discover that they all have one thing in common: they all love what they do. I know that if you are already an entrepreneur and you are reading this, you are doing so because you face challenges, or maybe you are reading this before you go out and start your own business; if that's the case, take it from me—if you do what you love you will have a bigger chance at success. The "struggles" will not be "struggles" anymore, but challenges, and everybody loves a challenge, right?

A. If you do what you love, you do what you understand: risk comes from a lack of knowledge, that's it—the only thing that affects the amount of risk, is the amount of knowledge you have about what it is you are doing. Freedom will always be risky to an extent, you can eliminate this risk by doing what you love, because if you love wine, you know a lot about it; I don't know a single person who loves something and doesn't take the time to study about it; therefore, the more you love what you do, the less risk involved. If I try to fly a commercial airplane I am exposing myself to 199% risk (if I can ever get it off the ground in the first place), but someone who has been flying commercial planes for 35 years will do it with his eyes closed, and he will have a 5% risk. So, if you love it = you understand it and that means less risk.

B. If you do what you love, you will never quit; no matter what happens to you and what difficulties you may encounter, nothing will be able to stop you, because you love it so much you will never stop doing it. Think about it, if scuba diving is your life's passion, but you ignore this passion and try and be a stock broker, that wouldn't make any sense. Maybe you'll make a few bucks, but it will not last, and when tough times come your way (and they always do), you will quit. However, if you made the intelligent decision of starting your own scuba diving school, or selling underwater photos and videos via a website or other channels, then you made the right decision. You will make much more money than being a stock broker, and you will never quit if financial issues come your way, lawsuits, or any other challenge that an entrepreneur may experience. You will survive, you will persist, and you will not stop because you enjoy it so much!.

One final example, I love to play golf, and I have a friend who can't stand the thought of it. I invited him over for a game once (even though I am not very good at it) and we played with a few other friends. The course was empty and we were able to enjoy ourselves, but my friend who hated gulf wouldn't stop complaining. Throughout the game he constantly looked at his watch. He was restless, hated where he was, and for him, every minute was as good as an hour. For those of us who enjoyed the game, the hours passed like seconds, and we were disappointed when it was over. The lesson here is that you must do what you love if you ever plan to be successful, and if you accomplish this one simple thing, then the challenges of entrepreneurship will be a pleasure to deal with, not a headache.

Tip 3: Never Quit

In 2005, when I was just 20 years old, I started looking for real estate properties to purchase for no money down, since I had no money myself. I ended up finding one home, owned by an old man who was not even living there, his kids had sent him to a nursing home and his house remained vacant for a few months. I had my eye on this property for a while, and when I decided to start my own real estate business and begin buying properties I decided to make this man an offer. Since I didn't know how to reach the owner of the house, I called his son, who was working in a General Motors factory in Fort Wayne. The man was very unpleasant but when I approached him, asking to buy the house, he was immediately interested in selling. Since I had no money, I tried to approach him with a no-money-down deal. I asked if he could carry a note for 20% while I would get 80% from the bank, but he refused. I asked again if I could arrange seller financing for the remaining 20%, and he refused again. He was very difficult to work with. I kept going for two months; I called him every Tuesday at about 12:00 and asked if he was willing to sell the house. I persisted until it got to a point where he threatened to call the cops if I didn't stop calling.

About a week later I was sitting outside the house, trying to visualize what it would look like after I bought it—what I would do with it, how I would paint it, what type of fence to install in the backyard (needless to say, I love real estate)—when I noticed an old man (the owner of the house) getting out of a car and being escorted into the house by a nice old lady. I immediately greeted him and explained that I was interested in buying his home. He agreed. He signed a note and gave me the 20% that was supposed to be a down payment, as a loan for five years; he was an old man (in his early 80's), and the house was in great shape. I rented it out to a tenant in less than two weeks after buying it, and I still own it to this day. The moral of this story is that I was persistent, I refused to quit and this mentality served me well when I got into some troubles three years later when the real estate market crashed.

This last example involves a man, let's call him Ed. Back in the late 1800's Ed paid every cent he had to purchase what he thought was a gold mine in Canada. He placed the mine down as collateral for a loan and began digging. Weeks had passed and he found nothing, another month passed, and he still found nothing. The banks were coming down on him hard because he couldn't afford to pay off the loan. Ed was now in big trouble. A young man came by one day and offered to check the area and create a scientific report. This report would be able to tell Ed if he had any chance of finding gold in his mine; Ed was very interested, but when he heard the price that the young man offered, he refused to pay even though he could afford it. Ed thought it was best to save his money in order to pay off the loan. After two more months of operation, he decided to stop digging and put the mine up for sale. The young man who offered to check the ground heard of this new turns of events and decided to buy the mine. He later purchased it as a piece of land since gold was never found there. Ed lost everything, and went bankrupt. He sold the mine for next to nothing, and all his possessions were lost; the new mine owner kept digging, and four days (yes, days) later, found gold worth millions of dollars.

Learn the lesson—be smart, and don't be so eager to quit when facing a challenge.

Tip 4: Failure doesn't exist

What is failure? The dictionary defines it as: "Failure refers to the state or condition of not meeting a desirable or intended objective." So in fact, what the dictionary defines as failure is something that we, as entrepreneurs, are dealing with every single day—"attempts" at success. The phrase to pay attention to here is "state or condition"; failure is, in fact, a state of mind. If you think you failed, you already have—that is the basic rule of failure. When banks are after you, and your business faces big trouble, you haven't failed... yet. But, when you decide to call it quits, then you have failed. Each and every one of us has a failure bar; this bar indicates how close we are to giving up and calling it quits. To me, failure was always an excuse for quitting, the fact of the matter is—if you don't quit, you won't fail. The best way to look at is to replace the word "failure" in our minds with the word "attempt."

When Edison attempted to create the light bulb, he "failed" 10,000 times before finally succeeding. In the entrepreneur game, 10,000 no's and a yes means yes. And that is the most important thing I've adopted into my personality during the last few years. I learned that there is no such thing as failure. When you think you are about to "lose" or "fail" look at it as a simple numbers game. The more times you attempt, the greater your chances of success are. So, forget about this word called "failure."

Tip 5: Wear your "Negativity Helmet" at all times

When I was a kid, I watched my dad go through some rough times with his company. His business partner had stabbed him in the back and ran off with half a million dollars of the company's money. The banks, along with suppliers and vendors to whom he owed money, were putting a lot of pressure on him. There is nothing worse than when a client is browsing through your store and the repo-man comes in to take away your cash-register. When I walked into his office I saw my dad almost depressed, with a mountain of bills and paperwork on the table. He told me (since I was five years old I can't remember the exact words I said) that I had told him to put on the "bad helmet," an imaginary helmet that blocked all the bad things from going into his head. Now, when I think about it, that was some pretty freaking smart advice from a five year–old kid. Today I still use this metaphor, but I call it the negativity helmet; there is no worst hell than the hell you create with your own mind.

What's the difference between Donald Trump, who owed about 9 billion dollars to the banks back in the early 90's and other developers (some were richer than Trump at the time) who owed less, and yet went under? The difference is the amount of crap these people allow to enter into their own minds. Your mind is a temple, and you must be careful what you let in to your temple. The Negativity Helmet protects you from all these bad thoughts. Just put the helmet on your head, close your eye and imagine all those negative thoughts hit the helmet and bounce back into space; I know it sounds silly, but it works. Try it. Then, afterwards, start coming up with solutions to your problem. Learn to always focus on the solution, and not the problem.

Last Tips: Change your questions and your vocabulary

 Imagine you are in a debate in front of millions of people, voicing your opinion regarding something that you are passionate about, when your opponent says "I am not sure that this is the right information." How would you feel? (Well, this is a debate, so I guess it's not a big deal, he is allowed to voice his opinion, right?) What if he says, "That's bogus!" How would you feel then? What happens if he continues and says, "You are a liar! Stop lying!" You would be raging with emotions even though he said the same exact thing, but used different words.

Learn to change your words, the brain influences how we feel based on the words we hear and speak. Changing your vocabulary will enable you to think more clearly and see the situation as it really is, a situation in time—that's it! In every one of us there is a winner and a loser, and they both have a voice. There is only one who can control the volume of their voice, and that's you. They speak whenever you are in a good or bad situation; the question is, who will you listen to? The loser uses words like "Never," "You failed," "Just quit," or "What's the point?" And the winner uses words like "Fix it!" "Do it," "Don't Quit!" or, "I want to achieve it, go for it!

" Instead of saying: "I'm going through some problems right now," simply say: "I am going through a test right now." Doesn't it make you feel different? If you really thought of your business challenges as a test to prove your strengths would you react differently? Would you think and behave differently than if you thought of them as "problems"? Instead of letting the loser inside you say: "I'm screwed! Everything is a disaster!" Simply let the winner inside you say: "This is the time to prove myself, that I can do this thing!" Remember, it is the winner inside you that encouraged you to open your business in the first place.

Instead of saying: "I am losing," simply say, "I am attempting to succeed." The questions you ask also have an effect on you. Your brain (like software) will find an answer to any question you ask it, so if you ask dumb questions you will receive a dumb answer. Instead of asking: "What did I do to deserve this?" Simply ask, "What can I do to fix it?" Instead of asking: "Why does it always happen to me?" Ask, "How can I avoid it in the future?"

In conclusion: you are responsible for your own state, your own mind, your own life, and your own business. If you ever plan to be a successful entrepreneur you have to be able to deal with difficult situations, these tips will not solve the problem, but they will help you look at the problem from a different vantage point, and enable you to get solutions instead of just complaining about how bad it is. An entrepreneur‘s life can be tough—deal with it, or go back to your job.

Through many years of working with entrepreneurs, the thing most likely to bring success to a sudden stop is the lack of attention to the area of human resources. Despite the fact that people costs of the growing business are the biggest single expense, very little attention is paid to this area until the entrepreneurial train hits the buffers.

Whilst I can see why this happens, it is still an inexcusable error by the would-be entrepreneur. When the business first starts there are usually only a small number of people involved and they are usually highly committed to the new venture and interact on a daily, and often hourly, basis. However, as the business grows so does the number of people. Moreover, newer employees are more likely to join because they want the job rather than because they have the evangelistic zeal of the entrepreneur. Add to that the increasing difficulty of communicating with a larger group and human resources is now a time-bomb waiting to explode in the entrepreneur's face.

Unfortunately, by the time the entrepreneur is aware of the problem, the cost in money and time of correcting this big hole in the master plan will be far more than had it been included in the beginning. Entrepreneurs understand clearly the need for a business plan, a marketing plan and a financial plan and yet most do not have a good human resource plan.

Some of my experiences of this have been truly astounding. In 2009 as part of a consultancy to implement good human resource practices in a 150 person company in Turkey I facilitated the first formal managers meeting with a clear agenda for forty years. Until then all communications had been carried out either in the dining room or when people passed each other in the factory. As a consequence miss-communication was costing the company more money than the size of their bank loan.

In a second company in Turkey, although there was a wonderful organisation chart in a desk drawer, in reality everyone reported to the chief executive resulting in him wasting most of his day with silly little queries.

Worst of all was a business in the UK that only admitted that they had a human resource problem the day that they received a formal notification of proceedings through an industrial tribunal for bad human resource practices. This was not because they were a bad employer but because they did not give human resources the correct attention.

So, in order to try and keep others from a similar fate, here are my top tips for managing human resources.

Make sure that, parallel to your business plan,  you produce a human resource plan to support it.
Before you employ anyone make sure you have a documented job description and person description. The first of these will tell you what you want the person to do and the second will tell you what type of person you require.
Always consider whether you really need the person long term or whether there are other ways of getting the work done. Too many companies deal with a crisis by hiring and then when the crisis is over they find themselves paying for someone with nothing to do.
When hiring, if you don't get the right person first time around, go around the loop again. Don't take second best.
When drawing up an organisation chart make sure that titles also have responsibilities associated with them. A person cannot be called a manager if they do not have the responsibility and accountability to manage those beneath them.
When hiring people, make sure that you pick people that believe in your product or service. That remains true from the top to the bottom of the organisation. A telephonist that does not believe in the product or service is capable of damaging your business.
Make sure that you hire people that are smarter than you. If you hire people less smart than you then they will do the same. Soon the company will be full of the least able people!
Make sure that you employ people that want to be developed. One organisation in the UK, called Talent, believes that we are all like icebergs with most of our potential not showing. This company will offer any job to the first person that walks in the door provided they commit to a development programme.
Once you have your employees make sure you have policies and practices to manage, develop and appraise them. Getting the right person is a hard job so it is worth putting in the effort to keep them.
Remember that people are a key resource and not an ego trip. Businesses are measured in terms of profitability, not in terms of the number of employees. One business I know has had a workforce that has fluctuated constantly between 2 and 25 employees. Strangely the profitability, or lack of it, has never altered!
This last tip is here for a very good reason. It is to remind you no subject has exactly ten top tips! Don't think that following these tips will solve all of your problems but they will give you a good start.

What is the right motivation to make the jump from employee to entrepreneur?

This article aims to raise key questions to assist you to make the right decision for the most important person in your life – YOU!

Why?

Why would anyone want to start their own business? 

The reasons why not to are all there for anyone to see – just doing an internet search on ‘why businesses fail' and you'll find 50,000+ reasons to be concerned.

And yet……. people are still doing it.  So why?

This is where you get to begin the process of being in control of your life.  You get the chance to ask yourself the questions and be able to answer them in the complete privacy of your mind.

Questions to help identify the "Why":

Why do I want to break free?    (Is it because you hate your boss, job, Mondays?) 
How do I feel about my current job, home, car, relationships, etc?    (Is this the life you pictured for yourself?)
Do I want more than that?
If so, what do I want to achieve in the next 6 months, year, 3 years, etc?
Will doing what I am currently doing allow me to achieve these things?
Am I prepared to ‘do what it takes' to make a business succeed?
Am I willing to invest in my business?  (Every legitimate business, no matter how small requires some form of investment, both time and money.)
If I need to learn new skills, ideas, etc to succeed – am I willing to do it?

What's next?

So, you've answered the questions and ….

You've decided that starting a business is not for you.  Or you've made a decision just to change jobs.  Or you've decided that you really do like your job. 

Good for you!  Entrepreneurship is not for everyone.

Or ……

You've decided that doing what you are currently doing will not get you to where you want to go.  You've decided that you want more.  You've decided that you're willing to find out for yourself. 

Good for you!   You have now taken one of the most critical steps in making your break for freedom.