http://www.socalledgurus.com/ How to build a profitable online publishing business en rhiannon@shelteroffshore.com Copyright 2007 2007-07-26T13:11:00+02:00 http://www.socalledgurus.com/a/b/what-to-do-when-you-lose-focus/ http://www.socalledgurus.com/a/b/what-to-do-when-you-lose-focus/#When:12:11:00Z Sometimes in life there are a million distractions all competing for your attention at once and only if you’re fortunate to be able to be single minded can you blot out the noise and focus on the task at hand.  Mother’s are quite good at this – they can ignore general background child related noise and get on with a task – but sometimes the shouting gets too loud, too frenzied or stops altogether and jolts even the most concentrated mother’s mind away from the job in hand! Even for those of you who are exceptionally good at staying focused and single-tasking, (just men usually!), there may well come a time when you have so many pressing work related issues, so many demands on your professional time and maybe even a hundred ideas buzzing round in your brain about what to do next to promote your brand, please your readership or just increase your profits that you lose all focus altogether. Here are just a few ways that you can cope if you find yourself in such a place. General Stuff 2007-07-26T12:11:00+02:00 http://www.socalledgurus.com/a/b/give-yourself-a-break/ http://www.socalledgurus.com/a/b/give-yourself-a-break/#When:14:37:01Z I’m writing this after a frantic day of airport runs for friends, running around trying to sell my house, dealing with a load of email requests for services that our strategic partners offer (all of whom are out of the office or on holiday today), handling a complicated request for documentation from our removal company (we’re moving to another country again!) and preparing a meal for a friend coming round tonight in need of a good old chinwag – so it’s fair to say that I’m frazzled and I felt the title of this post was highly appropriate - not just to the subject matter I’m about to impart but to me too! Now why am I harping on about myself? Because we all lead such busy, hectic and jugglesome lives with demands on our time coming from all angles (whoops there goes the doorbell) that I really do understand that it can become so easy to be distracted, to lose focus and to feel we are losing control of situations around us – which it is why it’s important to give yourself a break. By this I mean literally and figuratively give yourself a break – so: - a) give yourself a literal break to take some time out, stop, breathe, calm down, regain focus and b) give yourself a break figuratively speaking and cut yourself some slack, stop trying to change yourself, stop fighting and resisting yourself, instead be nice and patient and encouraging with yourself and you will not only achieve far more in life but enjoy life far more… Let me demonstrate why taking a break and giving yourself a break are so important for your mental, physical and emotional well being and also the well being of your company! Personal Development 2007-07-11T14:37:01+02:00 http://www.socalledgurus.com/a/b/five-ways-to-research-content/ http://www.socalledgurus.com/a/b/five-ways-to-research-content/#When:15:19:00Z My guess is that if you want to provide a valuable online resource you’re going to want to provide unique and worthwhile content.  But researching facts, figures, statistics and opinions day after day for your articles, guides, reports and entries can seem like quite a startling task to get your head around when you’re starting out and contemplating how exactly you’re going to - a) populate your website with pithy and desirable data and b) continue producing worthwhile web based content on a daily or weekly basis… But never fear – here are five ways to research for your content – they are tried and tested ways I use each and every single day and they will ensure your articles are factual, interesting, unique and that they provide value to your website! Writing for the Web 2007-07-10T15:19:00+02:00 http://www.socalledgurus.com/a/b/always-give-your-readers-and-clients-more/ http://www.socalledgurus.com/a/b/always-give-your-readers-and-clients-more/#When:13:25:00Z I truly believe that if you want more in life you have to be prepared to give more.  Nowhere is this truer than in online business where you should always give your readers and clients more. Why?  Because if you don’t someone else will!  And also because if you do, you will be showing your readers and your clients just how highly you value them and they will be far more likely to come back to you, to recommend you, to trust you and ultimately to ‘buy’ from you – whether you’re selling a product or just asking them to buy into an idea. Yes, there are always those out there who will take advantage of your generous and giving nature – I remember one such person who once said to me and Andy ‘you’re really nice people but you’ll never have much in life’ - but rest assured people like that will be proven wrong very quickly and what’s more, people like that are never those who have abundance in their lives because they are too concerned with holding on to what little they have rather than opening their arms to allow more into their life… So how can you give more? Your Online Business 2007-07-09T13:25:00+02:00 http://www.socalledgurus.com/a/b/the-great-comment-debate/ http://www.socalledgurus.com/a/b/the-great-comment-debate/#When:13:37:00Z The Great Comment Debate - Do You Need Direct Feedback to Every Post You Make? I’ve just spent a very enjoyable fifteen minutes or so reading through a trail of comments that Brian Clark invited for a post he produced on his CopyBlogger website.  Brian always has comments open on his site and often directly involves himself in the comments and feedback he receives as a result – in fact his comment series usually resemble something of an active forum string as commentators interact with each other and the author of the post. After chuckling at some of the arguments and misconstrued points that popped out the back of Brian Clark’s post it led me to bring up that age old debate in my mind once again – the great comment debate – i.e., do you need direct feedback to each and every post you make or are you actually courting distraction at best and brown-nosers and forum freaks at worst?  (You know the ones – they pick a fight with you no matter how neutral your question or comment.) In my personal and humble opinion there is a time and a place for switching comments on and that is not on every single post you make. Your Online Business 2007-07-03T13:37:00+02:00 http://www.socalledgurus.com/a/b/has-my-business-idea-got-enough-potential/ http://www.socalledgurus.com/a/b/has-my-business-idea-got-enough-potential/#When:16:13:00Z Few people wake up one morning with a fully fledged business idea ripe in their minds and of those who perhaps do, fewer still have the means and ability to get their business idea up, running and turning sufficient profit from month one to enable them to give up their day jobs or rest on their financial laurels. It’s more of a reality that many of us have one or maybe two good ideas in our minds with which we tinker and tweak and attempt to earn a profit in our spare time – but there comes a time when any of us with a half formed business should ask the critical question ‘has my business idea got enough potential?’ It’s a hard question to ask and an even harder one to answer honestly and realistically but it is still a critical question - if you’re starting up a new business venture you need to know whether you’re investing your time wisely, wasting your time pointlessly and whether you will ever be able to rely fully on your ideas financially…which is why you have to determine which if any of your business ideas has enough potential to become a fully fledged successful enterprise. Your Online Business 2007-06-29T16:13:00+02:00 http://www.socalledgurus.com/a/b/should-you-use-pay-per-post/ http://www.socalledgurus.com/a/b/should-you-use-pay-per-post/#When:14:08:00Z The concept of pay-per-post is simple – as the owner of a website, blog or online resource you put out a bid that invites professional bloggers to create a review, a buzz or a promotional piece about your particular website or service.  Bloggers that pick up your invitation and qualify to write for you based on criteria that you set - such as minimum page rank for example - then get paid by you to write about your site and they post their work on their website. As a result of the written promotion you may stand to get anything and everything from word-of-mouth personal referral marketing to traffic for example – or from back links to potential page rank improvement maybe? So should you use the pay per post concept for site promotion? Well, not only is general online opinion on this point actually heavily divided, I would be so bold as to say it’s a concept that works exceptionally well for some people and not at all for others! Tools and Software 2007-06-18T14:08:00+02:00 http://www.socalledgurus.com/a/b/focus-key-to-on-line-business/ http://www.socalledgurus.com/a/b/focus-key-to-on-line-business/#When:14:42:00Z When I first decided that I’d had more than enough of my job and all that it entailed, I started to look at every possible option and opportunity available from a sandwich bar franchise to unworkable MLM schemes, eventually I decided that the only way to get what I really wanted i.e., a job where I could work from home and a life where I could live anywhere I wanted to, was by using the Internet - and that’s where the decision making process really went into extreme overdrive and the chances of me settling on any one single business idea seemed remote.  If you’re anything like I was when I first started out, in order to move to sustainable profit as quickly as possible you’ll need to be very careful about the incredible amount of noise on the Internet that sets out to capture your attention and consequently takes your focus away from your business. At best you’ll lose a few hours work, at worst the distraction will keep you in a state of perpetual indecisiveness unable to commit long enough to anything for it to work. One thing that I never really appreciated when I first started working from home was just how much extra discipline it requires - or to put it another way, how much easier it is to allow yourself to be distracted. On top of this new found home based freedom to be distracted, you have the Internet with all its charm and temptation to just click around for a while.  It’s so easy to just follow a couple of links on the web and hey, 2 hours have gone and no work has been done! Worse still, you’ve just read about another great way to make money on-line and you’re about to rewrite your business plan for the 4th time this week and it’s only Monday! Basically you have to start to become immune to the incredible ‘listen to me’ type noise on the Internet - everyone will be telling you that they know the only real way to make money on the Internet - and when you’re starting out this can prove to be a real distraction. Yet while all this is going on if there ever was a secret to making money on-line it’s this:- “Don’t allow yourself to get distracted, keep yourself focused on producing one great website focused on a niche or topic that you love and enjoy” With that single secret firmly in mind your site will start to climb above the others - forget the people who you read about trying to manage 100 sites, don’t feel threatened by them, relax because they can only give their sites 100th of the time that you can give your site. Your Online Business, Entrepreneurship, Planning Your Business 2007-06-11T14:42:00+02:00 http://www.socalledgurus.com/a/b/developing-positive-and-desirable-outcome-scenarios/ http://www.socalledgurus.com/a/b/developing-positive-and-desirable-outcome-scenarios/#When:09:31:00Z Daydreaming is the foundation for developing positive and desirable outcome scenarios and this is a process that successful people the world over do day in and day out.  If you want to become a successful online entrepreneur, the ability to picture clearly the affirmative well formed outcomes for potential future scenarios in your life will set you head and shoulders above the competition! So - do you daydream; if you do are your daydreams fantasies or potentially reality, are they negative and scary thoughts or positive and hopeful imaginings that leave you feeling happy when you snap out of your reverie? Wherever your daydreams lead you today…after reading this article and practicing the techniques I’m about to reveal to you, every time you unconsciously slip into a daydream or you consciously decide to imagine the development and conclusion of a scenario in your personal or business life, you will be able to picture great things happening and you will be able to play out and replay the positive outcome you desire. Personal Development 2007-06-11T09:31:00+02:00 http://www.socalledgurus.com/a/b/your-personal-development-path/ http://www.socalledgurus.com/a/b/your-personal-development-path/#When:11:14:01Z Why is it that we’ll happily spend a great deal of our time planning trips and journeys, looking at maps, programming satellite navigation systems, buying flight tickets and working out exactly how we’re going to get from A to B but we seldom ever apply the same techniques, thought processes and planning procedures to our everyday lives? I mean, do you ever spend a significant amount of your time thinking about where you’re at and where you’re going in life?  Do you spend part of each and every day plotting your personal development path by working through the answers to these types of question: - - What are the long-term career goals that you want to achieve? - How’s your relationship with yourself and how is your relationship with your partner? - How satisfied are you by your current surroundings? - What are you doing to improve your current financial situation? Chances are you don’t, because few people do… But those people who do – well, they have the mindset to succeed - and because SoCalledGurus.com is all about helping you to gain the skill-set and achieve the mindset of an accomplished and successful online entrepreneur, this article is all about helping you to begin mapping out your personal path to accomplishment by determining where it is you’re starting from. The very first thing you need to keep in mind is that you have to know where you’re going if you are to have any chance of actually getting there – but even before you begin your journey you have to understand where it is you’re starting from…so let’s begin by finding out where are you now and determining your level and your position today. Personal Development 2007-06-09T11:14:01+02:00