Search Engine Optimization is a great way to market your blog. Now I know you can do a search on SEO and get a huge variety of information on what is most important. There is definitely not a shortage of information out there. It’s just doing it that is so tasking. Remember, to have the results you desire or to have something you have never had, like search engine rankings, you must do something you have never done! Search Engine Optimization is fairly simple, just time intensive.

Once your site is optimized, I feel that powerful content and link building are the most powerful tools in SEO. The better your content, and the more of it, the better your chances are of getting listed in the search engines. When I speak of link building, I am referring to the number of sites that link back to you site or blog. One of the best ways to get links on other high ranking websites is to create a profile on that site. So I have compiled a list of 10 blog directories to submit your blog to. Create a profile, add a link back to your website where ever possible. Most sites that allow you to create a profile will have a designated place for you site. So here they are:

1. http://www.blogtopsites.com
2. http://www.blogtoplist.com
3. http://www.topblogarea.com
4. http://www.blogratedirectory.com
5. http://topofblogs.com
6. http://www.bloglines.com
7. http://www.mynewblog.net
8. http://technorati.com
9. http://www.blogarama.com
10. http://www.globeofblogs.com

There you have it. This will give you a head start on getting your blog out there and getting some links coming back to your site. Make sure you place your blog in the appropriate category and also have some quality content on your blog.

I know there are many more blog sumbission sites out there on the net. I have provided just a handful. What other submission sites would you recommend?

Who says that watching TV is good for nothing? I guess it really depends on your mindset at the time you are watching TV. Believe me, I love action flicks just like the next guy and that is what I watch most of the time, but there are often lines within these movies that resonate with me. Being involved in the personal development industry, I pick up on lines that others might not think of as such a big deal.

So I was watching Batman Begins the other day for probably the 20th time, and two lines from the movie jumped out at me!

1. “Why do we fall? So we can pick ourselves back up.”
2. “It’s not who you are underneath…It’s what you do that defines you!”

If you remember, Bruce Waynes Father used to tell him the first quote. Rachel, the supposed girlfriend, shared the second quote with Bruce as he was walking out of a restaurant with a few ladies after taking a dip in their fountain.

“Why do we fall? So we can pick ourselves back up.” It is human nature to fall, but also human nature to get back up and in the process, we grow, we get stronger and we learn to adapt. When walking down the street you happen to trip and fall, sure it’s a little embarassing and it may hurt a little, but you pick yourself back up and move on. The pain and embarassment are temporary and will go away. It is amazing to me that some people will burro down inside that moment and allow it to influence their entire lives, careers, relationships, etc. No single event will ever influence the outcome of your life. Your life’s success is determined by many events, whether successful or not, that is up to you!

“It’s not who you are underneath…It’s what you do that defines you!” So if I think I am a leader, people will automatically follow me? If I think I am a millionaire, I am? I feel like I am a good person, why can’t others see it? So many of us probably view ourselves differently than the rest of the world views us. I think I am the best basketball player in the state of Arizona, but do my actions on the court support that? I want to help so many people and I pray for that every day but have I actually taken a meal to someone in need or offered shelter to someone without it?

There is a huge gap between knowing and doing. Sure, you can know that you are a great and giving person, but until you actually do something to show that, it is all worthless. Too many people think rather than do. Your true greatness will remain underneath if you don’t do something to define it!

Do some of these phrases sound familiar to you?

• Mondays suck!
• I hate Mondays!
• I have to go back to work on Monday.
• I had a blast this vacation but I’ve gotta get home to work on Monday.
• My boss wouldn’t give me Monday off.

I have not only heard these but have used them several times in my life and I know many of you have as well. If we were to take a poll, I think I would be safe to say that Mondays would be voted the least favorite day of the week. Monday means “work” for most people. It means a loss of a little bit of your freedom. It means you’ve got to go back to that dead end job of yours and do what someone else wants you to do, and in return, you get a paycheck that barely pays your bills! I don’t blame most of the world for hating Monday. In most situations, Monday really does bite the bullet.

Now that we are done referring to a Monday that is most common and mostly hated and avoided, let’s turn out attention to a Monday that most love and look forward to. It is a Monday that is fun, free, profitable and YOURS, just like every other day of the week. Why should Monday be any different than Saturday or Friday? Who designated Monday as the dreaded day of going back to work and why are you content in accepting that?

Mondays as a Home Based Business Entrepreneur are, for the lack of a better word, AWESOME! Why are they awesome? I get to choose my own work schedule or just choose not to work Mondays. I am my own boss! I am in direct control of my income and how much or how little I earn is on me, not an employer. I don’t have to “Be back” anywhere to work because my business is completely mobile. Choose to spend the day with your kids, go to a matinee, extend that vacation or just run your Monday business as normal.

You are the creator of your Mondays and have always been! Monday can be a great day…a day to look forward to. Don’t spend the rest of your life, hating it!

Allow me to share with you a little technique that has brought success to myself and many who I have had an opportunity to mentor. It is called the “Drip Technique!” Now when I say drip, do you understand what I mean? I mean, slowly drip your message, product, or service to your target audience. If you think about it, water can and has worked itself through massive rocks and formations just by a simple drip. The Grand Canyon wasn’t formed in a weekend! It took a consistent and persistent flow of water to develop one of the greatest natural attractions known in the World today.

Just as the Colorado River formed the Great Grand Canyon, you can create a massive income in your business that can be immediate and residual at the same time by using this technique.

Some of your potential customers will respond immediately while with others it may take a while with more exposure to what you have to offer. For some, the timing might not be right now, but when they get your email, or newsletter down the road, the timing could be perfect.

Here are a few ways that you can drip your audience:

1. Newsletters
2. Auto-responder emails
3. Letters or Postcards
4. Follow-up Phone Calls
5. RSS Feeds from your Blog
6. Brochures
7. Voice-mail marketing

I would have to name numbers 1 and 2 the most effective ways to drip someone the pieces of your bigger puzzle. The idea is to give them a taste. Every newsletter or email sent should contain a little piece of information which will entice them to want more and by the time they receive a few, they will be ready to buy, sign up, or commit. But there must be three key ingredients:

1. Consistency
2. Proper Frequency - Don’t overdue it!
3. Value in each drip!

In other words, be consistent, drip your audience once every week at the most, and offer a link, a free resource, or helpful information in every drip that will entice them to want the next one! Ensure your success by utilizing all the tools that are available to you as an Entrepreneur!

Also, knowing that I have a brilliant audience, what have you found to be effective in using this method in your marketing efforts?

Isn’t it a sad thing that most of America is $200 from being flat out broke? During the last few months I have heard all this talk about the price of gas. Here in Pinetop gas is running only $1.90/gallon. That is the lowest it has been in over a year and it only costs me around $40 to fill up my Tahoe. Not a bad deal and I am not complaining at all. I appreciate saving a buck here and there like just the next guy and it’s better than when it was costing around $80 to full up my tank when the price of gas was up and around $4.00/gallon.

I would say that I fill up about once a week, depending on whether or not I leave town that week. So to be safe, 5 times a week. My gas bill would then be around $200 a month. Of course when the gas was higher, I was spending and extra $200 a month. It was amazing to me to see people terrified to leave their homes because the price of gas was too high! People were having to do some serious budgeting and were looking to other areas in their finances to cut back so that they could take a weekend drive to visit family!

HOW SAD! So I say again, most of America is $200 or less from being broke and they don’t even know it. $200 is not a lot of money but to alot of people, it obviously is. Most people seem to be living paycheck to paycheck and will never have enough to do anything extra, so they remain stuck in their dead-end job hoping to get their break in life. Something that is even more sad is the fact that an employee will wait around an entire year of working their job, missing their family, struggling financially, just to get a 2% raise….and then do it all over again the next year. For most people, that is an extra $20 - $40 a week! WOW!

Instead of waiting around for an employer to determine your worth, which is only $40 more than it was last year, make it happen for yourself. What if it were possible to earn and extra $1,000 a week or even and extra $5,000 a week? Would you have the courage to step out of your comfort zone? Would you take the risk or would you stay with what is comfortable until you are either retired or let go?

Most Entrepreneurs, Millionaires, Successful Business owners have been called crazy at least once in their lives. I will admit that most members of my family thought I was crazy for starting a Home Based Business. I have been called “crazy” to my face several times and I think I am actuallyl beginning to enjoy it! We are called crazy for our ambition for a better life, for success, for big ideas. Sure, some may feel the easy path is to just get a job. For me, getting a job is the hard path. It is the boring path and most of the time, will lead you to being $200 from broke!

Decide here and now who you would like to be. Are you going to be the one with big ideas, a passion for life, a mountain of ambition, and a burning desire for success? Or, are you going to be the one who settled? The choice is really simple to make, but the destinations are completely different!

When you assist enough people in getting what they want, you will, in turn, get what you want! I would like to say this is an idea, but I think it is so much more than that. This is a principle, or a rule that happens when applied. For every action there is a reaction. Take action in bringing value and gain to someone else and the reaction of blessings, fortune, kindness, whatever it is you seek will come to fruition in your life.

Take for example the ant. What are the ants main concerns in life? Shelter? Food? Protection? An ant isn’t concerned with how fat they look or how out of shape they are. There is no selfishness in the colony. They all work together to support their queen and in return, they get the colony for protection, food, and shelter. I guess you could say they are working for a greater cause than themselves. There is a much higher purpose in their realm of existence and at times, I wish that we could be more like them in the aspect of team work and selflessness.

What would our world be like if we all worked together towards a greater cause? How would it effect your life personally to be part of something greater than yourself, and here’s the clue: actually know it! How would that change your perspective on what truly is important. I know that when I am going through rough times in my life, all I have to do, is give service to someone else in greater need of assistance than I am. Guess what happens? My issues all of the sudden don’t seem so important or as bad as they had seemed earlier. I gain a greater sense of how to get myself out of the situation I am in. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel and can see that it is a lot closer than I thought it was.

So ask yourself: When was the last time you made a difference in someone elses day, life, or even business? What have you done this week or this month to serve those around you?

My challenge to you is to take some time this week and give it freely to a neighbor, a colleague, a friend, a family member, or a complete stranger by offering a simple gesture of service. Sometimes it can be as simple as a friendly smile!

Remember, there is always somebody worse off than you are. So take a little bit of time out or your life to make a difference in someone elses. It will ALWAYS come back to you ten fold. Become part of a greater cause than yourself and I promise you, you will have more prosperity and happiness than you could possibly imagine!

This is a great explanation of an entrepreneur who merely survives compared to an entrepreneur who thrives! There is a huge difference. So as you read this analogy, take a personal inventory and think of which entrepreneur you are being. The results in your life will reflect it!

Some time ago there were two neighbors who lived out in the country. Both of these farmers owned a considerable amount of land and wanted to do something with the land to support their families with. One man decided to turn his land into a potato farm and the other planted an apple orchard. Both of these men were very hard workers and were out tending their crop daily. They did this for the entire year and come harvest time, the potato farmer harvested his crop, took it to town and made enough to support his family until it was time to start planting again. Then he would start the whole process over again.

On the other hand, the apple farmers orchard had yet to produce any fruit to harvest. The trees were still too young and would need more time to mature.

One year goes by and the same story stood true. The potato farmer harvested his potatoes once again and was able to support his family for the remainder of the year while the apple orchard had no fruit to harvest. The farmer of the apple orchard still continued to nurture his trees preparing for the time that he could reap his rewards.

Several years pass by in the same manner and finally, as the potato farmer was harvesting his crop as he did every year, the apple orchard produced it’s first year of fruit. The apples were harvested and were sold. Both farmers were able to support their families for the rest of that year.

Now, when it came time to start planting for the next crop season, the potato farmer got to work on his fields while the apple farmer watched him. You see, the apple orchard will continue to produce fruit year after year after year with very little effort from the farmer. He won’t have to replant the his crop every year but will instead enjoy the fruits of his labor for many years ahead. A few years of hard work will support him for the rest of his life while the potato farmer is still laboring away in his fields.

There is a word called leverage that every Entrepreneur should become familiar with. The leverage I speak of is TIME. When you learn to increase your profits without increasing your work hours, then you have discovered the true way to accrue serious wealth in your business and in your life.

So create an apple orchard, not a potato farm!

This is a video of me and my daughter hard at work. I absolutely love what I do! So if you have the idea in your head that Home Based Businesses don’t work, think again! Honestly, I can’t speak for all the other ones out there, but this Home Based Business definitely works and it pays big.

Can you really work from home and be as successful as you’d like to be? Are there any Home Based Businesses out there that can produce results? Are the promises and the advertisements stating the dream lifestyle and amazing income fluff or are there success stories? I guess the real questions is: Can the average person have the same results?

Now before I answer that question, let me dish out some statistics. It is fact that 80% of all businesses fail before their 3rd year in business, most millionaires have gone bankrupt or failed in different business ventures several times before experiencing success, the average income in most MLM structured home based businesses is less than $5k a year.

So can average people have all out massive success in a home based business? No! Average people can’t have much success in anything and I will tell you why, but first let me share with you the unwritten meaning of success. It means to excel, reach goals, stand out, accomplish dreams, create a fortune, experience results and all in all reach your desired outcome. How then, if you are average, meaning like everyone else, can you ever have more success than those who are also average. You must be different. You can’t be average and excel in a home based business or in any business for that matter. You must first learn to stop thinking like an average thinker, and to start thinking like a bug thinker, or an Entrepreneur.

The reason I say this is because there are thousands of people starting a Home Based Business everyday! Every single day! Now what is going to separate you from them? What are you going to do differently that will ensure your success? Here it is:

1. Direct Sales! Don’t waste your time or money on an MLM.
2. Find a Home Based Business with a system to follow and follow it to the “T”. System = success.
3. Find a mentor who is having success and get started with them.
4. Do what your mentor tells you to do and call them frequently.
5. Treat your home based business like a business, not a hobby. If you ever want to succeed then you must take more pride in your business than you do your job. Doing the bare minimum will not cut it!
6. You must be creative. No one will do it for you. Think of new ideas, “be your business” and do something original.
7. Play full out!! I cannot emphasize this enough. Mediocre and average effort will bring mediocre and average results. Play full out for all out massive success.

So many people just don’t realize that they can actually make more money, have more time, and spend more time with their family by starting a home based business. Average thinking people who have failed have clogged forums with negativity have distorted the true potential of a Home Based Business. While they have been doing so, so many people have been building fortunes and living dreams.

Direct Sales is one of the most lucrative industries in the world. People are literally making their prior annual salary in one single month. Why? Because they are not average. They are Entrepreneur…and there is a huge difference.

What does taking shelter in a storm have to do with being a successful entrepreneur or running a Business? Think about it. What should you take shelter from in order to become as successful as you’d like to become? Let’s take a look at what an ant might have to avoid along his journey of searching for food and protecting the colony. Numero uno would be the bully that is lurking around the corner with a magnifying glass! Another would be a literal rain storm and another might be cold weather. The list could go on and on but how do these things relate?

Here is a list of things that I would avoid, watch out for, or plan to go around if I was looking to create all out success.

1. Avoid negative media! Here’s an amazing statistic: Walmart gets sued every hour! But why? Walmart is a great store! I’ll tell you why. It is because Walmart is a great store and when you are a great store, that means you are a successful company. When you are a successful company, you make lots of money. Now who doesn’t like money? So they sue! Plain and simple, if you are successful, and they are not, they hate you for it! That is the truth.
2. Don’t waste time with the Kings and the Jokers. You are looking for Aces to work with. There are a lot of other prospects, clients, customers, or business partners that will be and look enticing, but they’re not an Ace.
3. Prepare for the Cold Weather, or the down time in your business. This is considered the slow season, if there is any in your industry. This is no secret and you probably already know this, but I will tell you the secret to getting through a slow time in your business. This is it! Are you ready? “There is no slow time!” Did you miss that? It is all belief!
4. Avoid, like the plague, people that bring you down with beliefs of poverty and failure. This one is number one in my book. Take all the people you hang around with, add their income and divide it equally among you. The average is what your income will generally be. Hang out with like-minded and ambitious people.
5. Procrastination! Avoid it, avoid it, avoid it! That is all I have to say about that!

There you have it. The next philosophy of the ant. The best way to take shelter from the storms of business is to just make a ton of friggin’ money and have all out massive success so that when a storm does come along, it will take a heck of a lot of force to knock your mountain of prosperity over! That, my friend, is how it is done!