February 25, 2008 was a Monday that set me free from the JOB as an IT Manager helping to make someone else rich. I would love to say that I’m now rich myself but, while that is not true financially, I do have all our needs and more taken care of. Also, I have time to enjoy my family doing what I want and not what I have to do everyday.

Last week my wife, son and I had a wonderful time escaping the snow and cold of Minnesota for the warm sunshine of Orlando, Florida. We had a working vacation together and still had time to play and do fun stuff. The three of us helped my friend and client Jeff Mills present his Clickbank Masters USA conference there in Orlando.

I am blessed to be able to change my work and lifestyle by making use of the Internet as a communication tool and a medium for building virtual businesses online. Sometimes online marketers make it sound soooo easy and talk about how anyone can build an online business. Well, that is not true anymore than anyone can open a successful business in your city.

My primary focus for 2011 is helping local business owners who need help to understand and utilize online tools and technology to get customers in the door or sell their products or services online. I will always be open to helping anyone who wants to start an online only business but that takes skills in business and administration that most folks don’t have.

If you don’t currently own and operate a business in your community but would like to find a way to build a part-time or even full-time business and, you have at least some basic computer skills, I would recommend you look into starting your own Greeting Card Business. My wife and I have done this and enjoy working this together. You can Watch a Short Video Here and learn more about it. You can try Sending a Couple Cards yourself and see how cool it is.

If you have questions about using the Internet for an existing or new business I would be glad to answer them. Just use my Contact Form to get in touch with me.

Image by laverrue via Flickr

Frequently small business owners spend hard earned cash for a web site and they get little return on the investment.

The first step in designing or redesigning your web site is to clarify the goals you want the web site to achieve. What is the purpose of your web site? What do you want your web site to do?

One of the goals of your web site should be to attract the attention of your target market. Most small business web sites fail to do this. Typically, these web sites are filled with information on the firm’s services, products and credentials.

These types of web sites do little to attract new customers, simply because they are “me” oriented. In other words, they don’t offer what the customer is looking for.

Most users of the Web are searching for information and solutions to problems. If your web site doesn’t provide easily found solutions the customer will quickly leave for other options.

Is your target market searching for the content you have on your web site?

Many small businesses have web sites in order to establish credibility. The mere presence of a web site is not going to convince prospects you can help them. To establish trust you need to demonstrate your expertise and qualifications.

One method for establishing credibility is by featuring testimonials. Comments from others are perceived with greater credibility than descriptions of your features and benefits. This will help differentiate your business from the competition.

What are you doing to differentiate your web site and build credibility?

Generating leads is one of the most important objectives for a small business web site. If people come to your web site for solutions, you want as many of them as possible to contact you.

It is also desirable for your web site to differentiate people who are not ready to buy from people who are ready to make a purchase.

Visitors to you web site need to be given direction and incentives.

Does your web site prompt people to supply contact information and contact you? Is there motivation for them to give you their contact information?

Of course the most important goal of your web site should be to help make you money. If you sell services and products it should be easy for prospects to find them, along with comprehensive information about each product.

Ideally, you will want individual sell pages for each product or service. Again, you will want the content to discuss solutions to customers’ problems.

Is your web site helping you sell more of your products and services?

It is your customers’ problems that maintains your business. You need both customer problems and solutions to keep your business operating.

Customer problems are the fuel that provides the power to your marketing engine. Fueling your marketing engine requires a constant focus on customer problems. The better you can address customer problems the more powerful your marketing engine.

What are the concerns of your target market? What problems do they have that you can solve? What problems do they want solved?

Prospects want to see themselves and their concerns clearly identified in order to feel confident that you understand their needs. Don’t start talking about features and benefits until you have identified the problems that the prospects want to solved.

Switch to using your prospects problems as the core to your marketing message and you’ll be amazed at how quickly your marketing will accelerate your business.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Social Media Marketing is Good for Branding, But What About Business Development (myventurepad.com)
• How To Create a One Page Business Plan (smallbusinessbranding.com)

EMAIL ME FOR THE ORDER LINK: freecd@whoishenry.com

The CD includes digital products that can be sold or used for reference, audios, videos, an easy to use HTML editor, PLR articles, Podcasting information and more.

I would be glad to put these into the hands of 10 people that could make use of them if you just pay the shipping and handling costs. So, the first 10 people who email me will receive a link to place your CD order for just $5.95 S/H.

In addition to sending you the Internet Marketing Home Business Startup Kit CD I will also give these 10 people a Free 20 phone call to review your online technology concerns and needs. I know that the technology of running an online business can be confusing for those without a technical background. With over 15 years of Information Technology management and Internet experiences I can help you.

I just emailed my list to tell them to visit this blog posting about the free CD offer so I don’t think it will take too long for them to get taken. If you want one send me an email to freecd@whoishenry.com

Today is Christmas Day, December 25, 2008. Besides being Christmas, the day we celebrate the birth of my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, this is also the day that I celebrate 10 months of being without a JOB. Wow, what a thing to celebrate you might think.

As I was sitting, looking at our Christmas tree early this morning before the family woke up and praying I had a thought. I remembered that it was just 10 months ago that I left my full-time job as the I.T. Manager at the big furniture store. Was that my idea? Well, yes and no…

I had been planning to leave my job there since starting my own part-time business three years ago. Like many of you I was spending hours and hours on the Internet and spending lots and lots of money buying and trying lots and lots of things to find something that would work for me so that I could quit my job and have my own home based online business.

The last half of 2007 I was working hard to help transition into my own business without leaving my employer, and especially the owner of the company who had been very good to me, in the “lurch” without my help. Not that I thought myself irreplaceable but, I did not want them to experience problems when I left. No one at the company was doing what I had been doing in several areas so I felt that I needed to make sure that things were taken care of before I left.

A year ago my friend Jeff Mills asked me to consider joining him to work on building his business and help to take it to the next level. We discussed what that would look like and when it would happen. We decided that I would begin to work with him beginning March 1^st of this year and that I would give my notice by mid month so as to not have a lapse of income between leaving the IT job and starting my pay from Jeff.

So I was very much ready but at the same time surprised to walk into work on Monday, February 25^th and have my supervisor and the HR department manager intercept me on the way to my office. Within less than an hour I was on my way home… the dream of being on my own and running my own online business was already starting.

After some brief surprise reactions from my wife we were both thanking God for His hand in all of this. As the Bible teaches, man makes plans and the Lord directs our steps.

So this morning as I reflected on the past 10 months and the past three years, I was finding answers to my questions and prayers for what is ahead for us. I know that I am to continue to make my plans and trust in God to direct my steps. I know that leaving my job last February was a gift from God.

With so many people including friends that I know who have lost their jobs in the past few months, and more to come as the US and world economies continue to seemingly spine out of control, I want to pass along to you a word of encouragement as my Christmas gift to you.

You may be a Christian or you may not, either way I want to tell you that I know that God is a loving father and He does indeed care for you. He wants only the best for you and your family but His viewpoint is usually different than ours. He can and will take care of us if we put our trust in Him.

Trying to figure out how to start an online business can be really confusing and the truth is only a few people are going to succeed in making a living online. So how to you know if you are going to be one of those who will make it? I wish I had a 10 point test that I could give you that would help you to see the future on that question.

I do have some ideas about what it takes to succeed in business online. I have looked at things that successful people in this Internet Marketing world do that I think can give us clues to what it takes. If you wish do know what they are I would love to share them with you.

If you would like to discuss your ideas for business, questions about getting started or technical “how-to” things that you are struggling with, get in touch with me and we can schedule some time to talk. You can contact me by clicking on the About Henry link at the top of this blog page and then select Contact Henry in the drop down menu.

I hope your Christmas was a Blessed one and pray that next year’s will be even better. Perhaps next year you can say that you, like me, are blessed to be without a JOB.

When my wife and I were listening to the weather forecast last night I commented that I had just washed my Jeep and got it cleaned up on Friday. She reminded me that I did not need to go anywhere if I didn’t want to. I almost forgot that my commute to work now is just within our home. I have my home office in one of our 5 bedrooms on the lower level. So, I really don’t need to drive the Jeep out in the mess today if I don’t want to. (Well, if it gets really deep I might go have some fun 4 wheeling in it and wash it later in the week when the temperature hits 50F again.)

This is just one of the many benefits of working from home with an online business. If you have questions about how to get started with an online business of your own, please leave a comment below and I will post replies and also try to reply via email to you.