Monday, November 29, 2010

You can become a millionaire, maybe


Picture I took on a Carnival cruise ship last January.


One of the problems in the US society is the myth that anyone can become a millionaire. Let me rephrase that, not everyone can expect to become a millionaire. Or rather, no matter how hard you try, you may not become a millionaire. This leads to such strange happenings like not wanting to tax the richest 2% more. The arguments against taxations are absurd. 


Having said that, some people do become millionaires. The exception proves the rule, right?



Mommy Millionaire’s - a few very short examples.... 


Often when people think of millionaire business owners, they think of the men who have achieved this status. However, all around the world moms are making millions from their hard work and inspiration. In fact, mom inventors have changed the world. They seek to solve problems, to make being a mom or a parent easier and to help others. Here are three real life examples of mommy millionaires.


Mommy Millionaire #1 - Teri Gault found that her passion for saving money on groceries could help others. Her hobby turned into the million dollar business known as “The Grocery Game.” The Grocery Game is a membership based website where members receive lists of coupons, stores and promotions. 


Members have access to the largest coupon database on the world. Gault offers a four-week free trial. After that, membership is $20 a month but promises to save you hundreds monthly on your grocery bill. Gault has also written a book, sells advertising space on her website, has a blog and has been featured in a number of articles. She has received worldwide attention from the news media. This empire was built on the single idea that a family can and perhaps should be able to save money on groceries. 


Mommy Millionaire #2 - Dr. Kathleen Hall is founder of The Stress Institute (www.stressinstitute.com ), Alter Your Life and The Mindful Living Network (www.mindfullivingtv.com ). Dr. Hall took her education, experience and desire to help people and created an empire. She has a Bachelor of Science in Finance from Jacksonville State University, a Masters of Divinity from Emory University and a Doctorate in Spirituality from Columbia Theological Seminary. 


Her advice has been featured on major media all around the globe; she’s a contributing writer for several websites and magazines and has authored a number of books. 


Mommy Millionaire #3 - Elon Bomani, aka "The Dynamic Diva" is a self-made millionaire. She took $36, all that remained in her checking account, and in 18 months created The Dynamic Diva.com & Papyrus Publishing: “an innovative publishing company dedicated to writing books, CD, DVD, creating e-commerce website and services that will educate, empower and inspire individuals to fulfill their greatest dreams beyond their imagination.”  


She took her goal and desire to inspire women to become more healthy, wealthy, and wise and created a multi-million dollar business. She’s been featured on major media outlets and has a cameo appearance in "The Louise Hay Movie," where she shares her rags to riches story. 


These three women are just a small example of the power moms can have on the world around them. Whether they want to help people save money, inspire or help people manage stress, they have all found a solution to a prevalent problem and made financial empires. 


There are women millionaires who made it working in direct sales and MLM. They are a quiet bunch but they do exist. I know a couple of them.


What’s your passion? What problem can your experience, skills and knowledge solve? How can you offer value to the world and build your own million dollar business?


Greg Cryns
Work At Home Profiles
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Virtual Assistant (VA) - How to find a good one


Apron lady at Paso Robles, CA




How to locate a good Virtual Assistant 

I am personally learning what a good VA can be expected to do. Why? Because I challenged my engineer brother to hire one for his business. He left to do some business in China yesterday so he called me on Friday to ask to handle his emails. "Sure!" I said. I probably should have asked how many he gets a day. He gets a lot of email requests for quotes and follow-ups.


To the point....


A good virtual assistant can be the answer to an online marketer’s prayers. However, finding a good virtual assistant isn’t always easy. You want to find someone who can handle your tasks competently and professionally. You also want someone who is easy to communicate with and charges rates you can afford. Here’s how to find a great virtual assistant.


Step One: Define what you need. Before you go on a hunt for someone to help you, determine exactly what you need help with. Each virtual assistant is going to have their own strengths. Some virtual assistants might offer a variety of services ranging from basic to quite technical and complicated. Other virtual assistants may specialize in an industry or a specific type of service. 


For example, one virtual assistant may specialize in editing, proofreading and transcription. Another may specialize in forum management or WordPress installation. In order to determine who to hire, you need to first determine what you need them to do. 


Step Two: Begin the search. In addition to perhaps posting the job on classified job sites, social networking sites and your own website, start searching. Ask associates who they recommend. Use a search engine to find service providers. Start gathering candidates for the position.


Step Three: Narrow the field. Once you have a list of candidates, start narrowing the field. Use references and recommendations to shorten the list. Consider speaking with the top candidates on the phone to find out how they work, what their policies are and to see how they communicate. Half of an effective relationship is communication. You must be able to clearly and effectively communicate with each other. 


Step Four: Test the waters. Ask the top two or three candidates to manage a small project for you. The purpose of this is to essentially test how you work together, how the virtual assistant manages the project and their professionalism. If you end up with two or three perfect virtual assistants, that’s okay. You can then choose the one that offers the best rates or the one that you most connect with personally.


Step Five: Keep your new VA busy. Once you’ve found a great virtual assistant, or two, then keeping them busy is a great way to keep them. Service providers need to keep their schedules full to keep their business alive. If they can count on you for a certain amount of work each week or month, they’ll make a consistent place in their schedule for you. This means you’ll be able to receive your projects on a timely, and consistent, basis. 


Great virtual assistants can be difficult to find. Additionally, a good working relationship with a virtual assistant is a two-way street. You want to be able to provide clear and consistent communication about what you need accomplished. Consider creating a system for your virtual assistant to follow. Once you’ve found a great VA, take the steps necessary to keep them.


Greg Cryns
WorkAtHomeProfiles
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Sunday, November 21, 2010

Blog comments make me either laugh or barf


just another strange graffic


I was reading an interesting email today. The topic was "how to manage your email". As usual, there were a few lines of text from the blog and then a link to read the entire article. I don't have any problem with that. In fact, this article was short and very sweet. The blogger put it all together in marvelous fashion. Not only that she provided a good solution.


But then came the comments from her adoring followers:


"What a great idea." said the first.


"this is a terrific idea." said another.


"Gotta love the timing of your post" piped in another because she just happened to be thinking about email solutions (time to roll your eyes)


"This is a great idea and I plan to do it more." but then the commenter called it a "poor man's approach".


on and on...... the people could not comment without adulation. 


But I do love the really funny comments I read at places like YouTube.


For a video about "business card etiquette (in the asian culture)" some comments were:


"what about if a women puts your card in her bra does that mean she is putting your face in her tits"


"  'Its like sitting on a persons face'  hahahaha "


"She's a total jerk.and idiot also :) she's a dumb ass."


"Can someone help me translate to Spanish this video?  Can anybody tell me briefly what this video?"


"this is a joke right?"


Overall, comments can be both educational and entertaining but too often they are just plain boring.


Greg Cryns
Work At Home Profiles
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Thursday, November 18, 2010

New tax laws for home business in 2011

     My pug dog, Fred, monitors my blogging.




Next year, 2011, there are new IRS rules coming that you need to be aware of. Here is an guest article to help you understand what will occur.


Home Business News - Are You Ready For The New Tax Laws?



by Steven Wagenheim



Leave it to the federal government to make things more complicated than it has to. If you think record keeping for your home based business is a nightmare now, wait until 2011 hits and the new tax laws take effect regarding PayPal, if they pass of course. You'll be inundated with more paperwork than ever imaginable. This article explains.


In a nutshell, here's how this disaster works. Starting in 2011, all income that comes through PayPal is going to have a 1099 attached to it IF you earn over $20,000 and have over 200 transactions. PayPal will be required to send a 1099 on your behalf to the IRS. Now, on the surface, this doesn't seem like such a big deal. The problems, however, are plenty.


For starters, if you've been doing your taxes as you should have been doing from the start, and are making any kind of decent money (actually, anything over $600) you should have already been sending a 1099 to the feds to let them know what you've been earning and/or paying out to contractors. So now, the feds are going to be receiving a 1099 from the people who have already been sending them PLUS a 1099 from PayPal. That translates into duplicate paperwork.


But it's not JUST duplicate paperwork. How is the IRS going to know what is a duplicate and what is in actuality a different 1099? How are WE going to let them know this so that they don't end up thinking that we're just paying part of our taxes? Oh, but the nightmares don't end there.


Let's say you spend more than $600 with any one vendor through PayPal, regardless of whether it's business related or not. For example, I play a video game online where I could easily spend over $600 a year on game tokens. I'm going to now have to report THAT because of the fact that the payments go through PayPal and THEY are going to report them to the IRS. This is where it becomes messy. Now we're not just talking business expenses. We're talking ANY amount of money that goes through PayPal in excess of $600 a year to one vendor. Have fun with that one.


I pity the poor person who takes payments from thousands of people in excess of $600 a year (think the poor guy who owns the Warrior Forum and the WSO section) who is going to be inundated with thousands of 1099s from all the people who spent more than $600 per year. He's going to need a team of accountants just to sort through that nightmare.


Yeah, leave it to the federal government to totally screw things up beyond belief. Anyway, that's what you're in for next year IF this new tax law regarding PayPal goes through.


Heaven help us all.

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! 
----------------------------


Greg Cryns
Work At Home Profiles
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Sunday, November 14, 2010

Social networking post titles



What makes a good Twitter or Facebook Title?



I guess you know one when you click on one.


Twitter titles-  You be the judge. Would you click the link next to it?


1, Social Media vs. SEO: My Approach


2. DIY 'Hackers' Tinker Everyday Things Into Treasure. Sunday inspiration from NPR


3. Magic Exit Code - Create Exit PopUps.. Use On Sales/Squeeze Pages Even Wordpress Blogs!


4. Canon EOS 50D Digital SLR Camera (Body Only) 15.1MP


5. 5 Reasons Why a Realtor® Should Tweet



Facebook titles


1. There do seem to be lots of earthquakes today around Yemen. What is going on?
     



2  A new fortune cookie has been delivered. 


3. Who is more intelligent: men or women?


4. New cover on Wired magazine - caught MY attention! :


5. Get six pack abs at home



What do you think? Is it important to have a good title for your social networking posts?



Greg Cryns
Work At Home Profiles
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Friday, November 12, 2010

Yahoo News as an online research tool



Yahoo News has similar features to Google News and it’s probably just a matter of preference on which you’d want to use. Yahoo allows you to search top stories by category, search by keywords, see the most viewed stories, most recommended stories and displays trending topics. But one thing we’ve noticed is that Yahoo seems to have more flexible RSS options than Google.

Go to http://news.yahoo.com and the categories can be found near the top of each page:


…and you can search for videos, photos and blogs too. If you want to search by keyword, the search box for the News is part way down the left side. The search box at the top right is a web search…rather than a news search.



You’ll find the RSS subscription options at the bottom left of each category page:




Or you can go straight to the RSS – Yahoo News page at http://news.yahoo.com/rss to select the feeds you want.


Greg Cryns
Work At Home Profiles

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Twitter Search and Trending Topics as an online research tool


Twitter Search and Trending Topics



Twitter is a large social networking site where users share “what’s happening”. Find out the most popular topics being discussed on Twitter. You can also search for discussions on specific topics.

Go to http://search.twitter.com and use the search box to find discussions on certain topics and see the most popular topics:





Click through any of the “Trending Topics” to see the recent tweets in real time:



In the top right corner, you can also subscribe to the RSS feed for any of the queries you choose (even ones that are not trending):



Greg Cryns
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Technorati as an online research tool



Technorati serves as a directory of blogs, but also organizes topics through tagging and ranks blogs, according to its own algorithm. It is useful for searching for blogs by category and for finding blog posts on certain topics.

You can browse by category at the top of the page. Just put your over the main category to see the subcategories.

When you click on a category, you can see who the top movers (ie. blogs gaining in popularity) are:




And you can search for topics or blogs, by clicking the appropriate button (“blogs” or “posts”) the search bar:




You can also look at popular tags by clicking “Tags” on the top menu. That will bring you to a page with a huge listing of popular tags over the previous month:


Greg Cryns



Reddit as an online research tool



Reddit is a social bookmarking site that allows you to what users are bookmarking and content gets ranked by what users consider to be “good” and what they consider to be “junk”. Although it may not give you a true picture of popular trends like a keyword tool could give you, it is a very popular website and can give you indication of the types of content users are interested in.

You can browse by category. At first, the categories might be hard to see, but they’re crammed at the top of the page:




You can browse by “what’s hot”, “new”, “controversial”, and “top.”

You can also use the search box in the top right corner:


You can then sort your results by relevance, how new the content is and how popular:


Greg Cryns
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Magazines.com as an online research tool


Magazines.com is a huge website where you can browse and purchase a variety of magazine, journal, book and newspaper subscriptions. This site can be a handy tool for researching niche markets with the theory being if there are magazines or other publications in a particular topic and advertisers paying to be in those publications, there is money to be made.


For example, let's say I am working in a health and fitness niche. I can go to  Magazines.com and browse the magazines available. 


Prevention Magazine caught my eye.




Here are just a few article titles for one issue: 1. More energy and less stress!,  2. Doctor approved natural cures, 3. Turning her back on Botox for good,  4. Vitamin Shocker - what works and what doesn't.


If I was looking for blog topics, these headlines alone from just one magazine would be enough to fuel some research on a single topic. See how that works?

In addition to finding topic ideas, you might also explore the publications so you can submit your own articles, press releases or seek out advertising opportunities. In short, Magazines.com can be a very helpful resource for an online business.





The top categories are listed on the left side of the page, but if you navigate to http://www.magazines.com/browse/ you can access all the categories and use a more powerful search.

You can browse by publication type and category. Below we’ve chosen hobby magazines:



Or you can scroll down further to view all the categories and their subcategories:




Once you click through, listings are automatically sorted by “Bestselling”, but you can sort alphabetically, by price, and more.









Google Trends as an online research tool



Google Trends allows you to see some of the most popular keyword searches and see their popularity over time. It also allows you to compare the popularity of keywords as well.

You can get started at http://google.com/trends. On the main page, you’ll “hot topics”:




And then more specifically, you can see the “Hot Searches”:





At the top of the page, you can enter your own keywords and compare them if you wish. Just separate each keyword by a comma:




By default, Google Trends shows you the data over the past few years:



As we can see in the above example, Santa Claus is the most popular with a spike at the end of the year. The Easter Bunny is next most popular with a smaller spike in the springtime. The Tooth Fairy is searched the less with only a few very small spikes in traffic in 2010.

In the top right corner, you can change the time period shown in the data. Your options include:



You can also view popularity of phrases by region or specify your search to a particular region.



Greg Cryns








Google Suggest as an onilne research tool

Google Suggest

While it is now integrated into regular Google search, “Google Suggest” is a tool that suggest popular keyword phrases based on what you are entering into a search engine.

Just go to http://google.com and start entering keywords. In our example, we enter “Amazon Kindle” and see what comes up:




You can keep entering words and more suggested searches will come up, if they are available. This is a very handy tool for quickly looking for potential keywords and even content ideas.

Using another example, you’ll also notice that as you search, the search results for the first suggested keyword phrase appears below until you make your choice. You can also scroll down the suggestions and quickly preview the search results. This might be helpful in locating an article to use as a reference or for further ideas.



Greg Cryns



Google News as an online research tool



Google News shows the top new stories from around the world. You can browse and search for certain locations, publications and more. It’s a good resource for finding current events and issues around which you can shape content. You can sign up for alerts via email, RSS and even on your mobile phone.

Go to http://news.google.com to get started. On the left side of the page, you can browse by category. You can choose a particular country from the drop-down box if you’d like.


“Starred” means stories that you have starred or bookmarked for later reference.

You can subscribe to the RSS feed of any category page. Just scroll to the very bottom of the page to find the RSS link:




You can also search by keywords using the search box:




And if you choose “Advanced news search”, you can search by specific keyword combinations, location, publication, author and more:




Greg Cryns