Nerves of Steel and New Business Plans

First – I want to share why I think you need nerves of steel when you are a in business. Especially those of us that have our business online.

When you are in business – you must rely on things that you have no control over. I’ve been reading lately about how others have lost their Adwords account or YouTube account or Paypal Account or eBay account etc. etc. etc.

These people are not only sharing their woes – but giving you a heads up on some business practices that might but your income in jeopardy.

You have to pull up your britches and keep fighting to keep your business in perfect harmony with the services you need but can’t control.

A few things come to mind that I know will cause grief – but you don’t have control over.

Servers/Hosting- You all remember that I had one of my hosted servers crash this year – and NOOO backups. I was truly tested.

Domain names- You must be responsible for keeping track of your domains and renewals.  It can slip away from you – and you could loose your entire business.

Email – Customer Support – I’ve had a Support Desk Ticket System in place for several years now. Regular ol’ email can get lost in the abyss.

Email- Aweber - It’s not perfect, but it’s close. When they screw-up and don’t send out an email broadcast on time you will need a stiff drink.

Clickbank - One of the favorites of marketers, but they have rules and fees that are a pain in the neck.

Paypal – With a flick of a switch Paypal can freeze your account. You can’t get your money, pay your affiliates or buy anything until you get the problem resolved.

eBay – If they would stop changing the rules… I might be a happier camper.

Amazon – They don’t change the rules often… but when they do LOOK OUT!

Virtual assistants and/or outsourcing – I love my VA’s – You do have to learn to roll with their daily life schedules and unforeseen problems.

Illness/Vacation – If you get sick, who takes over your business? You can’t just leave it hanging! And when you go on vacation – same thing ~ Who Takes Care Of Your Customers?

Shopping Carts/Membership software – I’ve used several of both.  Let me be the one to tell you “Nothing is perfect” – get the best you can afford with fantastic customer support.  And… make sure you have a VA that already is familiar with the system. You will thank me.

Business Partners/JV’s – You need ‘em as much as they need you.  Don’t forget that.  Make sure you are able to talk with them at a moments notice to resolve any issues that need immediate attention.

Internet Connection – The one thing that can ruin my day in a big way – My internet connection get’s really slow or falls off the face of the earth. Have a backup plan: I have dial-up service just in case and if I can’t get that I get on my Android phone or head to the nearest Starbucks.

Back Up Your Backups – I’ve got redundant backups of so much stuff it’s confusing. Over the years I’ve lost so much because I was lazy or complacent.  Don’t let it happen to you. Plus – I had someone (one of my VA’s) physically back up all of my sites into my Amazon S3 account.  Now – I don’t have her back them up again unless I make a lot of changes (or add a bunch of new content) – then I have her back that one up once a month.

Not Knowing Where Your Money Is Going – It’s easy to get caught up in the fun of making money and sharing ideas… but you need to spend a bit of time in the books. Every 6 months I spend an huge chunk of time (days) going through every detail of my business. What I’ve made – what I’ve spent – where can I cut expenses – what’s making me the most money for my efforts.

New Business Plans

I think I’ve mentioned (probably many times) that I have many different ways that I make money online.

Affiliate for physical products (such as Amazon and Share-a-Sale)

• Affiliate for digital products (I promote products I believe in)
• PLR – I have my own PLR business
• Google Adsense – niche blogs with Adsense and/or Physical products I promote as an affiliate.
• My own products  and book club membership.
• Amazon Arbitrage – which my husband is going into in a big way (I hope) ~ He loves how this is working.  This is something we can do together and he will finally be able to close up his own service business.
• Selling my books on Amazon – which is growing in baby steps.
• Probably a bunch of others I can’t remember right now.

I have a new business plan (or business model) underway. To put it in a nutshell – it’s about profiting from images.  I have several different reasons behind this move:

• I’m a very creative type – and miss having my hands covered with paint
• I love vintage images and things created using vintage images myself.
• I want to learn how to do something really NEW! I need to get away from the written word for a while and get back to something more visual.
• I’m finding huge opportunities to sell products that are derived from images.

Over the next few months you will see me change directions a bit on this website. I’ll be spending a lot more time talking about images than ever before. The cool thing is it won’t just be “talk” – but I’m putting what I’m learning into practice.

I’ll also be sharing what I’ve found that others are doing with images in their online businesses.

I’m actually very excited about this and I hope you will find inspiration in my journey. I want you to at least “think” about some new possibilities that you can add to your own public domain business.  I really want to prove that public domain is not always about the written word.

p.s. If you want to learn how to publish great books on Amazon CreateSpace or Barnes & Noble Nook check this out: