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The Power of Mentoring

Mentoring WorksLearn once, do once, teach once

This wonderful adage reminds us how effective learning, applying that learning and most importantly, sharing that learning can be, to strengthen and deepen your understanding and your experiences.

Many of the world’s most successful leaders work with a mentor or a coach to achieve the results they want both in their personal and in their business lives. They also mentor other people so that all their knowledge, learning and habits are handed on to other future leaders. You may be thinking “I’m not a leader because I don’t run a multi-million dollar company”, but think about this for a moment… Whether you are a stay at home parent, an entrepreneur, an employee or an eclectic mix of all, you are a leader to someone.

What messages do you want your kids, family, colleagues, boss, assistant or general tribe to receive from the way you lead? What I mean by leading is – how are you showing up each day? Who are you being? You know it all starts with self leadership, so start taking yourself and the roles you have chosen in life seriously. This doesn’t mean removing all the joy and passion you have in your life, but think about who is watching you and copying your habits ……… when you make a mistake, big or small, do you want your kids or colleagues to hear you endlessly berating yourself; or do you want them to witness something more resourceful like you acknowledging the mistake, sharing what you learned from the mistake and noting what you will do differently to prevent it happening again?

As a coach who works primarily with women, I always encourage my clients to share what they have learned about themselves and their resourceful strategies and habits with others. It’s called paying it forward. In other words, I encourage my clients to step up and mentor others. I was so excited to see that Australia’s most inspiring female leaders advocate this same approach.

The “Telstra Women in Business Awards” annual event attracts the most successful, inspirational and influential business women who deliver keynote speeches and address some of the main issues that have challenged the workplace over the past 20 years, since the awards were launched. If you can’t wait to find out what the finalists agreed were the top 10 key pieces of advice they have for you, skip to the end of the article, but do remember to come back and read the rest ………

The Game Changer

One of the most interesting points that has been highlighted this year, is the focus on mentoring and coaching and how important it is for organisations to have a strategy in place to ensure that women support other women on their career journey. The Australian government WGEA report states that the leadership pipeline isn’t working: women struggle to get past the lowest levels of management, and they occupy only a quarter of positions in the top 3 levels of management. A survey of leading Australian businesswomen found that 78% believe that active sponsorship, as well as mentoring are essential tools to breaking down barriers for women to succeed in the current environment. It would seem that women need to support other women in order to change the rules of the game.

The most exciting statistic (yes, stats excite me!) which I have read is that 83% of survey respondents firmly believe that women need to develop the confidence to challenge and influence authority which will be the key driver in our success in business. How to do that effectively? Get an awesome mentor and learn their skills and attributes was the response! It is worth noting that simply learning the skills is not enough. It is essential that you apply the skills to your own career path and model the habits and behaviour of your mentor and other people who are getting the results you want in life.

Vanessa Nolan-Woods, General Manager at Commonwealth Bank’s Women in Focus said; “when women work collectively to help each other, we will see more women thrive in business”. Who doesn’t want to be a part of that movement? While there are no quick fixes for increasing the representation of women in senior leadership positions and achieving pay equality, the finalists named sponsorship and mentoring as key to tackling gender equality in the workplace. Get on board!

Of those surveyed, 84% happily take on the role as mentor for the next generation of women, while 73% currently have or have had a mentor or sponsor. Remember – these are some of the most successful women in business and they are not afraid to appear “vulnerable” in that they ask for advice and help from the people who are ahead of them in the game and crucially, they listen to that advice. Think about how much you already know and could share to help someone else succeed quickly and with a lot less headaches than you may have experienced!

Sustained Success

Just before I share the top 10 key pieces of advice with you, one other important area that was highlighted as key in their sustained success was Health. In order to prevent burnout, the Award finalists emphasised the importance of exercise, with 96% believing their physical fitness influenced their focus and positivity at work. Other tips included diarising personal time, taking regular short breaks and meditation.

Advice from those in the know

In the spirit of women helping women, here is the list of their ultimate top 10 tips to help you make a difference.

  1. Be honest with yourself and others
  2. Listen to all advice, but stay true to your beliefs and values *
  3. Back yourself and draw on your intuition and emotional intelligence to make better choices
  4. Never give up or let your ego get in the way
  5. If you are a leader, scaffold other women to follow your path
  6. Be your authentic self
  7. Lead with confidence, flexibility and compassion
  8. Praise, praise, praise
  9. Learn to say ‘no’ at times and don’t apologise for it
  10. Be exceptional at what you do. Always.

A Quick Check in

* This is an area I would love to explore further with you. Take a moment now to think what your values are. What are your ground rules? Are you living by them or do you sometimes compromise them to fit in, or to accommodate others’ demands? Refer back to tip 1. Be honest …………

* Are your beliefs actually serving you? I mean, are they helping you get what you want in life? Sometimes things we believe to be “true” are no longer appropriate, relevant or useful. Did you know that your beliefs are pretty much shaped by others anyway AND they are in fact convenient assumptions. They are basically “made up” to help you make sense of the world, and because they are made up, it is easy to let go of those that no longer serve, support, nurture or challenge you and find new beliefs which will do just that!

Enjoy your journey!

To find out more go to:

http://www.telstrabusinesswomensawards.com
https://www.wgea.gov.au

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Make Big Waves / Double Your Profits – Replay Now Available

Awesome Training Webinar <<< Replay Now Available Below >>>

In case you haven’t had a chance to see everything that’s included in the She’s Organised in Business package I recently released, which doubles in price after midnight AEST on Friday 14th November (this Friday), I highly encourage you to give yourself the gift of taking fast, decisive action and take up your complimentary 45 minute strategy session and get access to our value-packed business package instead of sitting on the fence and waiting…

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Your Personal Blueprint for Success

Your Personal Blueprint for SuccessWouldn’t it be great if you could tune into your future self, the self 5 years from now, and listen as she tells you that it’s not all that hard, to stop stressing and that it’s all going to be really great? What else would she say to you? This week in my Momentum masterclass we’ve been working on our visions for life and business.

It’s always a very special part of the program and there are often some hard challenges as well as inspirational highs as people distill what it is they’re really here to be, do and have. It can be a challenge to tune out of what everybody else wants, what the experts think, what the media says, what our family expect and to tap into your own authentic self. To reach that place of clarity about what you desire for your life requires focus, quiet and calm reflection.

I really feel honoured to be able to create that precious space for people who are otherwise so busy, they can’t hear their own thoughts or even feel their emotions.

The good thing is that you don’t have to have all the answers. You don’t have to ‘know’ what you want ultimately from your life right now. All you have to do is to reignite the system of tapping into your imagination and desires – a system that you were totally tuned into as a child. Then as you get better at it, like building your muscles, you get clearer and more confident about your direction. So it’s just takes a little bit of re-wiring. No big deal.

If your goal for example is to…build a profitable business that you love, are you clear about what that looks like? Is it broken down so you know the little steps you need to take, to get there? Or is it just a vague concept of something that should be on your to do list? If you want to ‘get fit’ do you know what that looks like and what it feels like and what it takes to get there? Have fun and get specific – map out your vision in detail.

Albert Einstein observed, “The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.”

So for this exercise, tune out of your current stresses and issues and just move your mind way beyond to a time when the stars are aligned and things have fallen into place. Tune into a future place of confidence and clarity. You’ll have a great sense of certainty when you know what it is you want.

We all want a return on our investment of time. None of us want to feel like we’ve wasted it. If you throw more time at a problem, you’re not going to necessarily solve it. We need new thinking. We are not owned by these 24 hours. They are a man made construct. We have, at our disposal, an infinite source of power – of passion, wisdom and potential. We haven’t even tapped into 5% of what we’re capable of.

For example, you’ve created new life – look at your children. You’ve made someone else the happiest person on the planet (! Well, you know what I mean!) – look at your partner. You’ve overcome countless obstacles – think back to when you recovered from ill health, when you bounced back after a challenge that threw you for a six. Remember those times when you felt like throwing in the towel. And then think again. We’re capable of so much more.

I’ve always loved an in-side out approach, instead of an outside –in approach.

This post is aimed at helping you tap into what you want – it might take you a week, a fortnight or a year. There are no limits. And it’s a process – it doesn’t have to be perfect. But when you find your ‘true north’ then your journey, and the way you spend your time, will shift.

Do this exercise with your children – encourage them to have goals and vision boards. There is a lot of science behind this which you’ve probably heard about and that you will master when you get into the Milking It program.
Creating a compelling vision for your life and business is often put in the ‘do later’ basket because it’s never URGENT. But it’s the most important thing you can do. So we coach you through the process. We have a system to help you do it step by step. We get you to tap into what it is you really want. And resonate with that. It’s not enough to just want to wave a magic wand and make the problems / mess disappear. You need to have a direction.

Oprah says: “I’ve come to believe that each of us has a personal calling that’s as unique as a fingerprint – and that the best way to succeed is to discover what you love and then find a way to offer it to others in the form of service, working hard, and also allowing the energy of the universe to lead you.”

Get creative and share your journey here. I’d love to hear how you’re going. And remember, when you’re ready to make life easier, join the Milking it program where you’ll be given the structure and the steps and the coaching to make it happen.

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How to Create a Vision for your Business

Are you ready to start turning your ideas / passion into money?

Whether or not you have your business up and running yet it’s critical you begin to see yourself running a successful business.  When I’m faced with challenges in my business, it’s my vision that keeps me going.  When I look at the inspiring vision I set when I started my company, all complications fade and I’m motivated to push through and carry on.

Every major company in the world has a vision or mission statement – a broad, futuristic idea of what their company will achieve and look like in the future. Our five-step process helps you get there, but you need to know where “there” is first.

So, let’s take a look at what a vision statement is, and why it’s important for you to create one for your business.

A vision statement is a broad, inspiring image of the future state a business aspires to reach. It describes without specifying how aspirations will be achieved, or when. It’s ambitious and forward-thinking. It’s not about where the organization is now… it’s about what the organisation will be, or aspires to be.

A vision statement needs to:

  • describe your aspirations and intent
  • be inspirational for your future staff and customers
  • project a compelling story
  • paint a clear picture
  • use engaging and descriptive language
  • be realistic
  • align with your company’s values

The vision statement will also provide a clear criteria or measuring stick for decision-making. When making tough choices, ask “Does this support the vision statement?” If major initiatives don’t support the overall business vision, chances are they aren’t worth the investment of time and money.

If your business doesn’t have a vision statement, it needs one. There’s no time like the present!  If you already have one, then take this opportunity to strengthen it or make sure it’s aligned with the current dream you have for yourself and your company.

Your vision statement – once created, agreed to and perfected – should remain consistent and unchanged for several years.

Your team needs a strong, clear vision statement just as much as you do. When creating a vision statement, keep this in mind. The vision will need to be something that your staff can embrace, get excited about and that will motivate, inspire and build morale.

How will you communicate your vision to your employees once you’ve created it? How can you inspire them to nurture and support your vision on a daily basis, and in everything they do? How can you empower and motivate them to take ownership of the company’s future and their stake in it?

Our next blog post will help you get started with creating YOUR unique vision statement.  In the meantime, if you would like some help, please e-mail me at Brigitte@momentumfirst.com.au and we’ll help you get started quickly and easily.

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How to Create a Vision for your Business – Part 2

evaluate_where_your_business_isIn the last blog post, we talked about why you need a vision statement for your business. This post explains the first step to creating your unique business vision statement.

The easiest place to start is to evaluate where your business is today. That will reveal where you WANT it to be.

Start by looking at your current strengths and weaknesses from the perspective of everyone who does business with you: your customers, staff, management, vendors or suppliers and owners.

For example, what would your customers say about your level or quality of service? Would this area be considered a strength or a weakness? What would your staff say, or what would you want them to say about training and professional development opportunities? What do you think about your income and overall financial growth? Use this chart as a guide:

Analyze your observations, and remember that your weaknesses represent great opportunities for change and improvement, while your strengths need to be nurtured and developed.

Take a look at what you’ve written and answer the following questions:

  • What does the overall picture look like?
  • How does the overall picture align with the dream you have for your business?
  • What great achievements and qualities exist in the strengths section? (List 10)
  • What opportunities exist in the weaknesses section? (List 10)

Now that you’ve had a good look at where your business is positioned today, in the next post, I’ll help you to future pace your business and define where you want it to be.

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How to Create a Vision for your Business – Part 3

Where you want to beIn the last blog post, we helped you to explore where your business stands today – the good, the bad and the ugly.

Now we want to get into the detail of where you WANT it to be. When you look at the strengths and opportunities that you explored, where would you like each one to be? Using the features on the chart provided in Part 2, above, let’s now turn them into clear sentences describing the future state of your business. For example, “we constantly surprise and delight our customers with prompt and professional service, which creates word of mouth referrals”.

What opportunities and aspirations are the highest priorities for you and your business?

Take the sentences you created from the exercise above and list them in order of importance to you. You may have to do this several times before you feel the order is accurate. Then combine duplicate sentences or ones that describe similar things.

Once you’ve finished your list, take the top three to five sentences and combine them into a cohesive paragraph. That will give you a really good overview of the kind of business you want to build.

Refine your statements so that they’re broad, future-oriented and use words that reflect your values, priorities and dreams.

You need to refine your statement so it’s smooth, clear and easy to understand. Here’s a checklist to use when reviewing the words you’ve written:

  • is it inspirational for your staff and customers?
  • does it project a compelling image?
  • does it paint a clear picture?
  • have you used engaging and descriptive language?
  • is it realistic?
  • does it align with your company’s values?

TIP: You can use phrases like:

A leader in…
Support the development of…
Offer opportunities to…
Continually create…
Build on…
Inspire…
Develop…
Facilitate…
Achieve…
Deliver…
Bring together…

5. Include your staff in the vision creation process and ask them for feedback.
Do they understand the vision? Do they support it? Does it inspire them? Can they find meaning in their work based on it? Incorporate their feedback where possible and relevant.

6. Put your vision statement where everyone can see it – your staff, management, customers and vendors.
Once you’ve created your vision statement, share it with the world. Your vision is something you’ve committed to, and it lets everyone know where your company is heading. It allows them to see where you want to go, and gives them the opportunity to help you get there.

Now, do you have everything you need to start working towards your vision?

In the Momentum Business Academy e-learning program, we will show you how to work through a comprehensive goal-setting process that will act as the roadmap for achieving your vision. You’ll also review, in depth, the five-step process which is the strategy that you’ll use to achieve your goals, and in turn, the vision you’ve created. Find out more here: www.momentumbusinessacademy.com

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Time to change the way we think about time.

Time to changeMore than 60% of Australian women say they are suffering from time pressure. This is causing stress, arguments and inner turmoil. Even our kids are struggling. Employees waste 10 weeks a year searching for missing documents, grappling with sharing files and other lost administrative tasks.

We try to play catch up by multi-tasking, better known as ‘faulty tasking’, but we lose 30 minutes of thinking flow every time we switch tasks, making it the most overrated in our list of bad habits.

When did we lose touch?

My darling grandmother would not believe the way I live my life, were she still gracing this world with her wisdom and charm. With so many “time saving” devices at my disposal – washing machine, iPhone, car, Thermomix, vacuum cleaner, dishwasher, microwave. She may well wonder why I don’t swing in a hammock all day long reading a book, with all the help at my disposal.

How many devices can claim to save us hours per day? And yet here we are, more ‘time poor’ than our grandmothers. Their perspective of time was completely different.

The thing is, time is a totally man-made construct. What’s your relationship to time? What does it mean to you? Is it something to tame? To conquer, keep, spend, waste, have, make? If you could find 12 extra hours per week, would you spend it doing what you’re already doing and feeling as stressed as you do now? Or would you use it in a way that changes your life for the better?

We need to change our inner ‘talk’ about time, and remember that we already have what it takes to make a massive difference in our own lives and the lives of those around us. Of the three sources of personal power – time, energy and money – time is the only one that we can NEVER get back. The clock is always ticking. Spend money and you can go and earn it. Expend your energy and you can re-charge with a good night’s sleep. But no one has ever been able to turn the clock back.

Sometimes it feels like you’re there all alone with that massive ‘to do’ list and your mind racing about endless tasks you haven’t done, worrying about tomorrow, next week, next month. But there are millions of women who all share these frustrating time issues. Time to stop overwhelming and start living. It’s time to change the way we think about time.

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How to Create a Vision for Your Business

Are you ready to start turning your ideas / passion into money?

Whether or not you have your business up and running yet it’s critical you begin to visualise an existing business and see yourself running a successful enterprise. When I’m faced with challenges in my business, it’s my vision that keeps me going. When I look at the inspiring vision I set when I started my company, all complications fade and I’m motivated to push through and carry on.

Every major company in the world has a vision or mission statement – a broad, futuristic idea of what their company will achieve and look like in the future. Our five-step process helps you get there, but you need to know where “there” is first.

So, let’s take a look at what a vision statement is, and why it’s important for you to create one for your business.

A vision statement is a broad, inspiring image of the future state a business aspires to reach. It describes without specifying how aspirations will be achieved, or when. It’s ambitious and forward-thinking. It’s not about where the organization is now… it’s about what the organization will be, or aspires to be.

A vision statement needs to:

  • describe aspirations and intent
  • be inspirational for your future staff and customers
  • project a compelling story • paint a clear picture
  • use engaging and descriptive language
  • be realistic
  • align with your company’s values

The vision statement will also provide a clear criteria or measuring stick for decision-making. When making tough choices, ask “Does this support the vision statement?” If major initiatives don’t support the overall business vision, chances are they aren’t worth the investment of time and money.

If your business doesn’t have a vision statement, it needs one. If you already have one, then take this opportunity to strengthen it or make sure it’s aligned with the current dream you have for yourself and your company.

Your vision statement – once created, agreed to and perfected – should remain consistent and unchanged for several years.

Your staff need a strong, clear vision statement just as much as you do. When creating a vision statement, keep this in mind. The vision will need to be something that your staff can embrace, get excited about and that will motivate, inspire and build morale.

How will you communicate your vision to your employees once you’ve created it? How can you inspire them to nurture and support your vision on a daily basis, and in everything they do? How can you empower and motivate them to take ownership of the company’s future and their stake in it?

Let’s start creating your unique vision statement.

1. Start by looking at your strengths and weaknesses from the perspective of everyone who does business with you.

Think about strengths and weaknesses from the perspective of customers, staff, management, vendors or suppliers and owners.

For example, what would your customers say about your customer service standards? Would this area be considered a strength or a weakness? What would your staff say, or what would you want them to say about training and professional development opportunities? What do you think about your income and overall financial growth? Use this chart as a guide:

Strengths Weaknesses Customers Customer service Product or service availability and quality Business location Business image Staff Training Salary Professional development Benefits Quality of work environment Management Training Benefits Staff skills Vendors / Suppliers Product or service quality Owner (You) Income Business image Salary

2. Analyze your observations, and remember that your weaknesses represent great opportunities for change and improvement, while your strengths need to be nurtured and developed.

Take a look at what you’ve written and answer the following questions on your pad of paper:

  • What does the overall picture look like?
  • How does the overall picture align with the dream you have for your business?
  • What great achievements and qualities exist in the strengths section? (List 10)
  • What opportunities exist in the weaknesses section? (List 10)

3. Now that you’ve assessed where your business stands today, where do you want it to be? What opportunities exist?

Here you will take the strengths and opportunities you identified in step one, the analysis you completed in step two and start describing them in words. Use the chart below as your guide. Write three sentences that describe the future state of your business.

3. What opportunities and aspirations are the highest priorities for you and your business?

Take the sentences you created above and list them in order of importance to you. You may have to do this several times before you feel the order is accurate. Then combine duplicate sentences or ones that describe similar things. Once you’ve finished your list, take the top three to five sentences and combine them into a cohesive paragraph.

4. Refine your statements so that they’re broad, future-oriented and use words that reflect your values, priorities and dreams.

You need to refine your statement so it’s smooth, clear and easy to understand. Here’s a checklist to use when reviewing the words you’ve written:

  • is it inspirational for your staff and customers?
  • does it project a compelling image? • does it paint a clear picture?
  • have you used engaging and descriptive language?
  • is it realistic? • does it align with your company’s values?

TIP: You can use phrases like:

A leader in… Support the development of… Offer opportunities to… Continually create… Build on… Inspire… Develop… Facilitate… Achieve… Deliver… Bring together…

5. Include your staff in the vision creation process and ask them for feedback.

Do they understand the vision? Do they support it? Does it inspire them? Can they find meaning in their work based on it? Incorporate their feedback where possible and relevant.

6. Put your vision statement where everyone can see it – your staff, management, customers and vendors.

Once you’ve created your vision statement, share it with the world. Your vision is something you’ve committed to, and it lets everyone know where your company is heading. It allows them to see where you want to go, and gives them the opportunity to help you get there.

Now, do you have everything you need to start working towards your vision?

In the Momentum Business Academy e-learning program, we will show you how to work through a comprehensive goal-setting process that will act as the roadmap for achieving your vision. You’ll also review, in depth, the five-step process which is the strategy that you’ll use to achieve your goals, and in turn, the vision you’ve created. Find out more here: www.momentumbusinessacademy.com

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5 Ways to Launch a Successful Online Business

  1. Decide and Do. Discover a problem that needs a solution. Instead of letting your ideas slip through your fingers, you decide to create a solution.
  2. Test and Test Again. A big reason why so many entrepreneurs fail is because they invest lots of time and money in their products or services before evaluating whether there is a market for them.
  3. Decide if you’re an entrepreneur or an inventor
  4. Find a Mentor
  5. Use Social MediaSuccessful Online Business

How to Build a Successful Online Business

I love the lifestyle that comes from running an online business. I get to work from home each day, set my own hours, choose my own projects, and enjoy abundant income. It’s hard for me to imagine how I’d feed myself without the Internet. When I think about income generation, I immediately think of the web.

I was talking to a successful entrepreneur recently who pointed out that building an online business is an exercise in personal development. He’s absolutely right. I’ve probably learned more valuable life lessons from my entrepreneurial pursuits than from any other areas of my life. Running a business tests you in so many ways — your self-discipline, your intelligence, your communication skills, your focus, etc. If you’re lacking in any of these areas, your business results will reflect it.

The real world of business can be unforgiving. Success is rewarded. Mistakes are punished. The benefit is that it keeps you honest. You can’t settle for weakness, laziness, and bad ideas, or your business will fail. There’s a huge chasm between an idea that sounds good and an idea that actually gets implemented and succeeds under real-world conditions. Anyone can come up with good ideas, but most people can’t successfully implement them.

Some people can’t handle the pressure of running their own business. They worry about the risk of failure. They’re looking at it from the wrong angle though. That risk is precisely the point. Risk is what helps you grow. It makes you stronger. An entrepreneur who fears risk is like a bodybuilder who’s afraid of barbells.

There have been times when I had to deal with tough problems, like having bills due but no money to pay them. These problems made me dig deep inside myself. My business compelled me to grow into the kind of person who could handle these sorts of things. I learned to trust myself to work hard, to stay focused under pressure, and to even enjoy the process.

We all have different levels of risk tolerance. You don’t need to stress yourself out to grow. You just need to challenge yourself in a way that stimulates you. Lift weights that are heavy and which tax your muscles… but which you can still successfully lift. Afterwards you may feel spent, but you’ll also grow from the experience. If you only do what comes easy for you, you’ll suffer from atrophy, and life will become rather boring and pointless.

Why an online business?

In the age of the Internet, I think almost everyone should have an online business… if only for the growth experience. It doesn’t cost much to start one, but it will teach you so much. Perhaps the greatest benefit is that you’ll learn you do have something of value to share with the world, something that can generate income for you for the rest of your life.

In a way I’m jealous of the teenagers and 20-somethings who are growing up so Internet savvy. Any of them could start their own online businesses and get ahead financially at a young age. I would have loved to have been doing this in high school or college. It’s terrific that some people are becoming millionaires at such a young age, but I think the real success stories come from those who find a way to generate just a few thousand dollars per month, enough to cover their expenses.

My kids are only 4 and 7 years old, but I’m already thinking about how I might help them start their own websites soon. My daughter is very artistic, so who knows? Imagine if by the time she becomes an adult, she already has a steady stream of cashflow from websites she created during her teen years.

Building traffic

Running an online business is deceptively simple. Look at my web site, for example. The structure isn’t very complicated. It’s mostly just a lot of content and a lot of ads. But it consistently generates a nice five-figure monthly income. Anyone can do it, right?

Unfortunately, not everyone can do this. People try and fail all the time. The success stories get a lot of attention, but there are orders of magnitude more failures.

The key factor in building a successful online business is traffic. If you can’t build sufficient traffic, you won’t be able to generate much, if any, income. And unfortunately most people are really bad at building traffic. They apply completely inept strategies that don’t work, and they usually give up within a few months after starting.

Building traffic is not remotely easy for most people. This problem isn’t unique to the web though. You see it in every field. Some authors sell millions of books, while the average book doesn’t even sell 5,000 copies. Lots of people can write a book, but relatively few know how to sell a book. Lots of people can create a web site or blog these days, but few know how to attract large amounts of traffic.

If you can successfully build lots of traffic, it’s fairly easy to generate income from it. You also have time to figure it out. If you can grow your traffic, you can maintain your traffic, and that gives you time to figure out how to monetize the traffic.

In the past I’ve written articles trying to teach people how to build successful online businesses, including How to Make Money From Your Blog and How to Build a High-Traffic Website. Those were long, detailed articles, and both have become extremely popular in the blogosphere. I didn’t charge any money for this content — it’s all free. Those articles inspired a lot of people (hundreds that I know of) to enthusiastically start their own websites. Some of those people are doing quite well now, but most that I’ve been aware of have failed miserably.

Why most people fail

Why did most people fail? I think the reason was that the whole process of running an online business is just too complicated for most people. There are lots of ways to screw it up. It pained me to visit some of those sites and notice a dozen glaring mistakes within the first few seconds — blogs that didn’t enable permalinks, cutesy headlines with no keywords in them, bad choice of topics, page titles that still used the WordPress default format, hideously suboptimal ad layouts, hidden or missing contact info, etc. Any one of those mistakes could cripple a site’s results. More than one is a practically a death sentence. Such mistakes cause problems both for human visitors and search engines.

But at the same time, there were teenagers humming along just fine, generating four figures in monthly income after working on their sites for 6-12 months. They didn’t necessarily get everything right, but they were Internet savvy enough to fix the big problems early.

What bothered me most about this was that people were too often failing because of the technology. Many of them had great ideas and very good content. It was a shame to read some of their articles and think to myself, This is great stuff… too bad no one will ever see it.

The cruel and unfair part of online business is that if you aren’t very Internet savvy, you’ll make mistakes on the technical side that you’re totally oblivious to. You may get the content side right, but the technology will bite you and cripple your results.

In my “How to Make Money From Your Blog” Article, I did correctly identify this problem and suggested that 99 out of 100 people would fail because of it. But it’s still a pretty unfair situation. There are people who can write great content who really deserve to be getting a lot of readers, but because they don’t understand permalinks, RSS feeds, pinging, or other technologies, they’re doomed before they start.

Once I saw this happening, I basically decided I’d better shut up about encouraging people to run an online business. People kept asking me for new articles on the subject, but I didn’t think it was a good idea. I was concerned I’d be doing more harm than good.

A new solution

Recently I came across a vastly superior solution to this problem — a way for people to build a successful online business that doesn’t require them to become technology gurus.

What I recommend is a service called Site Build It! – it’s an all-in-one solution for creating and building an online business. You pay an annual fee for the service, and they provide you with all the tools you need to build an income-generating web site. They host the site for you, they help you register your domain name, and they provide integrated tools like point-and-click page generators, built-in blogging, form builders, RSS feeds, and lots more. Many of these details will be handled for you, so you don’t have to worry about them.

You still create your own content, and you use their tools (or your own familiar tools) to create a site based on your unique ideas. You focus on the content side. They help you with the technical implementation side.

I don’t recommend this solution for everyone. If you’ve already built a successful website that generates thousands of dollars a month for you, you won’t need this. I don’t need it myself. But if you’re one of those people that have been held back by the technical complexity, then this is definitely something you should look at. This is the kind of solution I’d recommend in a heartbeat for my non-programmer friends who want to get something going online but quickly become lost in a sea of jargon.

There’s a lot to explain about this service and why I think it’s a great idea for most people interested in building a successful online business. So I wrote a whole separate article about that here:

Build Your Own Successful Online Business

That article is my personal impression of the Site Build It! service, and it contains many links to their site for more info. The most important link is their 30-minute video tour. If you have even a slight interest in running an online business, it will be worth your time to watch it. It starts out mostly motivational, but it becomes more educational as it goes along. Even if you’re not interested in their service, I think you’ll get something out of it. I especially liked the segment on monetization strategies.

If you’re interested, just be aware that it will take some time for you to look into this service and decide if it’s right for you. The Site Build It! site has a lot of detailed information on it. In my article I’ll provide you with some ideas for where to get started to find the most critical pages. If you really like to do your homework before making a decision like this, you’ll find no shortage of detail.

An extra benefit for those who already have successful web sites

Site Build It! also has one of the most generous affiliate programs on the Internet. Some of their affiliates earn more than $10,000 per month. I recently became an affiliate myself after seeing what a great service this will be for people. If you’re looking for new income sources for your web site, just read the last section of Build Your Own Successful Online Business, which will explain why this affiliate program is so strong.

Running an online business can be a wonderful growth experience, and the income and freedom it can provide is certainly nice too. People really shouldn’t be deprived of this opportunity for technical reasons. The self-publishing power of blogging technology has gotten us partway there, but it’s only one piece to the puzzle. I encourage you to take a good look at Site Build It!, since I think you’ll find that their system fills in the remaining gaps, putting online business success within reach of most people.

This is by no means a get-rich-quick program. You’ll still need to put in the time and energy to create quality content for your web site, but at least you won’t have to worry as much about the technical side.