KitwanaAkil.com

By Nicole Dean

“I started my business so that I’d have freedom, but I’ve never felt more trapped….”

I come across a statement like that at least once a day on a forum post or in email. You start your internet business because of the freedom of being your own boss and working on your own schedule and then promptly sit on your hind-end for 12 hours/day EVERY DAY. No wonder you feel burnt out. And no wonder family and friends are feeling neglected when all you can think and talk about is your business.

Freedom sounds pretty miserable to me if it means freedom from fun and the ones that I love.

So, how do you break free?

Start by taking a good look at your business and getting your goals and priorities straight. Don’t worry, it’s not nearly as complicated as it sounds. I’ll walk you through it right now. Ready?

Grab a pen and a piece of paper or open your favorite word processor. Divide your page into four columns.

Now you’re ready to brainstorm. Write everything down as it comes to mind. Don’t overthink this. Just start writing.

First, figure out what is working. Whatever it is. It may be one of your websites, your ecourses, a joint venture, a certain marketing method. Where is the bulk of your money coming from, currently? (If none yet, where do you believe will be the place where the largest profits will come from?) Write those items in column #1 under: “Do More”.

Second, figure out what is not bringing in money. Is it hanging out on forums or posting classified ads to freebie sites? Is it endlessly checking your stats, or email? What are your daily time-suckers? Write those under column #2: “Do less”.

Third, figure out what could work better. Do you have upsells in place? Are your websites designed to bring you cash from every visitor? Make a list of ideas in column #3: “Improvements”. (If you don’t know yet, don’t worry. There are plenty of ways to improve your business as you learn and grow.)

Fourth, figure out what can be automated. Which tasks are repetitive and boring, albeit necessary? Many of those types of tasks can be automated with simple tools. For instance, if you’re submitting articles to directories by hand, there are tools and services to do that for you. Add these to column #4: “Automation”.

Now that you’re armed with your list, it’s time to get to work.

Look at your list in Column #1: “Do More”. Those are the tasks that you should focus your energies on. It’s a good idea to tackle one or two of the tasks on that list first thing in the morning – every morning. Believe me, it’s much more productive than checking out your favorite blogs or logging into twitter. And you’ll be amazed at how much you can get done quickly when your mind is fresh.

Look at your list in Column #2: “Do Less”. These activities should be forbidden until after you get your #1 list done, if you do them at all. For instance, hanging out on Twitter is fun, but do not do it until everything in column #1 is finished for the day.

Now, go back to Column #1, 3, and 4. Your “Do More”, “Improvements”, and “Automation” lists.

Look at all of the items that are on those three lists. Now, circle each task that you …

• Can’t Do
• Don’t Have Time to Do
• Don’t Want To Do

Those are the tasks that you’ll outsource.

Freedom means a lot of things. It means freedom to do the things that you want to do. However, it also means freedom to NOT do things that you really dislike doing.

For me, it’s graphics. I have outsourced all of my graphics since 2001. I don’t have the time, patience or inclination to learn how to make my own graphics. I have more important things to do, like write this article and then go on a bike ride with my son. Perhaps when I get back from my bike ride, my graphics will be waiting for me in my inbox.

Now, that’s freedom to me.

Want to outsource but don’t know where to start? Nicole Dean and Jimmy D. Brown invite you to http://www.OutsourceWeekly.com where you’ll learn how you can get free time (and earn more money) while others run your business for you.

I would have to say that the two hardest parts of starting an online business are

Getting traffic to your website
Financing your business

In this article we will talk about the latter of the two. Financing your online business.

I’ve been working at internet marketing on and off since the spring of 2006. In 2008 I finally had a small breakthrough and my business suddenly started to fund itself.

Mind you I wasn’t making enough to quit my day job, but I was making enough to pay for my business expenses. I also had enough left over to buy those “must-have” ebooks and memberships that all of the “gurus” were pitching every week. It was a good feeling not to have to charge everything to my credit card.

You might ask, “If you weren’t paying for it with your credit card… How were you paying for it?”

Well I started paying for everything from my PayPal account. How was I able to do that?

I was making money flipping websites. But the neat thing was that the money from flipping the sites was paid instantly to me via my PayPal account.

Creating your very own asset and selling it online is probably the best way to fund your online business ventures. The money that you make from the products you sell is paid directly to you. No need to wait 2 – 6 weeks for payment on sales that you have made like some affiliate networks operate.

Don’t get me wrong there is nothing wrong with making money as an affiliate, but it pales in comparison to the rush of receiving an instant payment that you can access immediately for cash.

The only thing that beats a one-time payment for a product is to receive a recurring payment every month. Recurring payments are magical because they come every month like clockwork. I’m still surprised and delighted to get recurring payment notifications.

So how do you go about receiving your very own “Notification of Payment Received…” emails from PayPal? Here are the steps:

Create your own product of some type
Create a website to flip for cash
Create an information product
Offer some type of service
Create a Sales Page or simple Mini-site
Create a PayPal “Buy It Now” button
Create a Thank You Page with the download link

That’s it!

Flipping websites is one way to earn cash really fast and I cover that in my new eBook:

Pimp My Flip: How To Create WordPress Blogs You Can Flip For Quick Cash

Not only can you get instant one-time payments for selling your websites, but you can also generate recurring payments by offering website hosting to your buyers.

Imagine selling a site for $200 that only took you one hour to create. Then earning $6 per month for hosting that site for your buyer! That’s $272 for one hour of work! And the money is paid directly to you. No waiting for checks to arrive.