Entrepreneurs-Journey.com

A couple of weeks ago I spent the weekend at Niagara Falls, in Ontario Canada. We rented a car and then after a much longer than expected drive from Toronto (it was storming like crazy - lightning hit within 500 meters of our car), with a short detour at Niagara-on-the-Lake (a lovely little bed and breakfast/fancy European hotels strip with great restaurants), we arrived at the falls.

Here is a video I recorded of the adventure, including a trip on the smurf boat right up to the foot of the falls.

I’ve been to Niagara Falls once before and it always amazes me how much water there is, which this time was magnified even more given it rained most of the weekend I was there. As an Australian I’m used to dry weather, so it’s nice to get wet like I used to as a child playing in the rain. Thankfully it wasn’t too cold, unlike my first trip to the falls.

This week I’m off to New York city and as always will record video and share my experiences with you. I’m heading to the Ed Dale/30 Day Challenge meetup first, then off to the US Open tennis and then just exploring. If you want to say hello, make sure you make the meetup tomorrow night.

To people who email me during this time and my Blog Mastermind students, please be patient with me as my email response times might be a bit slower than usual during this period, but I will get back to you.

[ Add Your Comment | 15 Comments ]

I’m off to New York City tomorrow for a holiday. While there I was thinking of holding a meet-up for my readers, but I just got word that Ed Dale and his 30 day challenge people are meeting on Wednesday, so I’ve decided to head to that instead - and you’re invited!

If you want to meet me and say hello to Ed Dale and his crew too, we’re meeting on Wednesday night starting 7pm.

Full details are on the 30 Day Challenge blog.

[ Add Your Comment | 4 Comments ]

Press play to begin streaming the audio or right click the text link and choose save as or save link.

Download the MP3 [ 30 Minutes - 14 MB]

Willie Crawford has been in the Internet marketing game for a long time, yet he still managed to have an entire career in the air force before becoming a devoted online marketer.

Willie and I recorded this interview on Skype and I wanted to learn more about his history online, since he is widely regarded as one of the earlier “gurus”. I was also curious about what Willie’s first foray into online business was, as most people don’t start out selling how to make money products. Willie is no different - his first big success was a recipes email newsletter and a cook book he sold (a six figure business), which began after he started sharing recipes from his family farm.

From there Willie went on to become a seminar speaker, created a continuity income stream by private labeling the 1ShoppingCart system (his is called ProfitAutomation.com) and today runs a community of people who service all kinds of markets in his Internet Marketing Inner Circle.

Willie ends the interview with two powerful tips - how any person can start a business today providing basic Internet marketing services and training to local offline small businesses, and how to leverage forums to find opportunities.

Show Notes

• Willie’s early life living on a family farm and then joining the air force
• His first Internet business project - a dating affiliate program
• Willie learns about niche marketing by reading email newsletters while flying in the air force
• Family food leads to Willie’s first successful email list and product - a cook book
• The next step - Willie becomes a speaker at Internet marketing seminars
• Willie reveals the secret to success - good copywriting
• Taking the next step, Willie decides to create his own residual income product
• How to become an expert - run your own seminars like Willie
• How the Warrior Forum led to a business opportunity
• Today Willie focuses on offline businesses and helps them market online
• Why do some people succeed online and others fail
• Willie’s current community - The Internet Marketing Inner Circle
• How to leverage forums to find business opportunities

Click Here to Download the MP3 [ 30 Minutes - 14 MB]

[ Add Your Comment | 11 Comments ]

Last night was the Toronto bloggers and blog readers meet-up organized between myself and John Chow.

I forced John, his readers and my readers to go to the Live Organic Food Bar in Toronto, which I realize is not everyone’s cup of tea (no meat). I was secretly curious to see what John would post on his blog about it because he always covers the food he eats when he goes out.

John wasn’t too harsh thankfully and enough people ordered food, so I think we pulled it off. Who knows, maybe I even converted some people to organic vegetarians or even raw foodists (not likely! - I’m not there yet myself).

You can watch John’s video of the event below and read his recap here -

I’d like to thank everyone who turned up. It was great as always to talk to so many like minded individuals all following the blogging path.

If you attended the event and want to keep up with anyone you met, don’t forget you can go to this Facebook event page and find a list of people who attended (or at least who RSVP’d).

A Common Thread

We talked about all kinds of topics but one thing stuck out in my mind after the event as the most common thread, something which people continued to ask me about throughout the night in some shape or form.

I have to blame Tim Ferriss for this, it’s his fault.

Everyone is dying to emulate the 4-Hour Workweek.

As testament to how much people don’t like their day job and desire travel and lifestyle freedom, I was asked how I manage to travel and blog and earn a good living running a business several times by different people. I think that has to be the greatest motivation for a lot of people to start an Internet business and one of the main reasons you read this blog.

To answer this question, last night I mentioned two factors -

Read the rest of this entry >>

[ Add Your Comment | 17 Comments ]

This is part 2 from John Cow/Jason Katzenback on how to grow a business through hiring staff. Enjoy!

In my previous post of this series “Delegate or Die - How to Hire Locally to Grow Your Business“, I talked about planning for moving your business into an office, today I am going to touch on what to look for in office space, how to find employees and how to hold interviews.

Office Space: SHOP AROUND!

As I mentioned in the previous post, I am speaking to you out of experience and sharing with you what I have found to work best through trial and error. I am telling you this because I hope I can spare you from some of the HUGE mistakes I made and finding my initial office was a big mess up on my part. You see, I was so excited to be moving out of my home office that I jumped at the first office that looked half decent, which might not sound bad but 2 months later I was packing up and moving again.

1. Location: You want to make sure that your office is easy to get to. The further you are from your office you will find that you start making up excuses as to not going to the office. Do not fool yourself and think you can hire an office manager and not even head into the office, this is something that takes time to put into place and your employees need your guidance and leadership.

It is also important to consider errands, supplies and restaurants. The more central you are to other resources, the less frustrating you will find it. If you need to get stamps, paper, repairs and even food, it is extremely frustrating when you have to plan hours of your day to pick them up.

Last of all, is your office easily accessed via a bus or subway route? If you are going to have employees, you are going to want to ensure they have no excuses for not being able to get to the office.

2. Lighting: This was another huge mistake I made. I first found a great looking office but it was in the basement of the office building and there was only one small window. I thought that I could get lights but believe me, nothing replaces natural sunlight and do not underestimate how important it is.

3. Room for Growth: This was my biggest mistake of all. I did not realize how much room one person’s work area took. You need to realize that once you sign a lease, you can not easily get out of it and room for growth is not an acceptable excuse.

You need to have a clear picture of what you expect for size requirements for a one year period. The recommended space requirement per person is 250 sq/ft, which might sound like a lot but consider that is only a little more then 15 ft x 15 ft and in that space you have to fit a working station, area to move around equipment and so on. Now personally I think that is a little much but I would never budget less then 150 sq/ft per person, you do not want people bumping into each other to move around.

4. Privacy: You are going to want to ensure that you have an office with a door on it. Your employees will constantly want to talk with you and ask questions and by having a door you can make sure that you can shut the door and have your privacy to get things done. I will talk more about this in the next post when I get into managing your employees.

How To Find Suitable Employees

Read the rest of this entry >>

[ Add Your Comment | 7 Comments ]