Posts tagged Henry Griner
My Three Year Anniversary Working From Home
Feb 28th
I just had my three year anniversary running my own business from home (and just about anywhere else I want to travel to) working as an Online Business Developer.
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.
Elk River Online Business Mastermind Website Updated
Jan 9th
Yesterday I did some major updates to my Elk River Online Business Mastermind Website including a new theme to start off 2011. Also I posted a new article asking the question, “Why should any business owner care about Google Places?” Here is a short snippet from that posting.
Most people would consider that YellowPages.com is still the leading point of entry for citizens looking for a neighborhood restaurant, bakery, bike shop, or hair salon. Working hard to attract attention are the biggest online companies, with Yahoo.local, Bing.local, Apple Apps, and of course Google all offering their unique solutions. As these big fish fight for position, the smaller fries still have a shot at dominating search results. Yelp, CitySearch, MerchantCircle, HotFrog, and SuperPages are postitioning themselves smartly and hoping for a shot at the next tier. Meanwhile Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare and others are being touted as the next best way we will begin our shopping day.
As an Internet Marketing Technology Consultant who follows these developments I believe that Google Places has the most juice, the clearest path, and the best basics to end up as top gun. And after 12 months of changes to the product on an almost weekly basis, Places seems poised to make a move to become the leader in the Virtual Land Rush to help business owners build their local businesses.
First, there’s the virtual real estate on the Internet. If I were a government attorney, I think I could make a case for unfair competition when it comes to the search engine with 80% of search putting its own local search engine (LSE) in color at the top of the page for searches that include businesses in every US city. But with no such effort coming from the justice department, the other search engine players have no answer to the location, location, location issue. If Superpages or Yelp can sometimes manage to find themselves first in the organic, this doesn’t come close to the power of their single out or seven-pack Google Places presentation.
If you want to checkout the website and read the new posting go to Elk River Online Business Mastermind
New Year and Old Focus – Getting Back to Where I Started
Dec 31st
When did you start your journey to learn to make money on the Internet?
As I finish up a few tasks in my home office today and get ready to welcome in the New Year of 2011 with family and friends I’ve been reflecting on my online journey.
I started my current consulting business, Mission Springs LLC, in December 2005 just five years ago. For nearly three years I have been running my business full-time after leaving my J.O.B. at Becker Furniture World as their I.T. Manager.
But, my journey to learn how to make money on the Internet or from doing work involving using the Internet started way back in 1994 and 1995 when I was first exposed to the WWW (World Wide Web). Back in September of 1994 I started to use Netscape Navigator while taking a business management program at a local college.
I will spare the details of the experiences I had back then but I will say that by the winter of 1994-1995 I made my first income by teaching others how to use the Internet for business. As a matter of fact, one of my most interesting students was the CIO for a local small business called Cargill. He came to my class to learn how to use the Internet to build the company’s first website. You can see one of their first designs here at Archive.org from 1996.
http://web.archive.org/web/19961223102940/http://www.cargill.com
Later in 1995 I started to talk with my local banker, telling them that they needed a website for the bank. After a couple months of me “pestering” them they said that I should go ahead and build the first website for them. So, along with Larry Hill (who worked for the bank) we set out to do that working on an old PC with a dial-up modem. You can see an early version of our design also at Archive.org.
http://web.archive.org/web/19970117011500/http://www.the-bank-er.com
Between 1995 and 2008 I worked at three different companies in their Information Technology departments and at each one I had a hand in website design or Internet systems. While working for my first IT company I built the first website for the City of Chanhassen, MN. Here is one of the early designs I did for the city… really lame looking I know. But hey, the paid me to do this.
http://web.archive.org/web/19961031160637/http://www.ci.chanhassen.mn.us
I did my own consulting and website work back then under my first business name, G.T.A. Business Solutions. Again, not a really great looking website but it got me business.
http://web.archive.org/web/19961103225347/www.elknet.com/gta/hpgta.html
In the mid to late 1990’s while working full-time at IT jobs for others I helped several local businesses in Elk River with their first online ventures. And now, I’m getting back to where I started.
I’ve tried to help other people who wanted to learn how to build online businesses. I build websites for their various “make money on the Internet” ventures but most of them never became successful for lack of money, skills or time to see success happen.
Last year I joined the Elk River Chamber of Commerce and started attending the weekly Tuesday morning Chamber Connections networking meeting. This step, along with some other key steps, has now brought me full circle back to working with local businesses and organizations.
Over the last several years I’ve made tens of thousands of dollars by using and from using the Internet and helping others to use it to make money. My goal for 2011 is to do more teaching and consulting with businesses in the Greater Elk River Area, to help them maximize their ROI of advertising dollars by using the tools available online.
In the past several months I have positioned myself with some of the top resources and people who I can call on to provide the tools and services local business owners need to gain the competitive advantage in their organizations.
If you are a business owner or know a business owner who needs a better plan for utilizing the Internet in 2011… please contact me. I can help you to leverage your good business to make it a Great Business and draw clients and customers to you that you don’t have now. Also, I can help you earn more repeat sales from existing clients and customers using the technology of online business.
Have a wonderful New Year of 2011… I plan to.
Facebook Fan Join Button Is Now a Like Button or Do You Not Follow?
Apr 27th
Are you a person who has a hard time with change. Maybe you didn’t vote for “Change” in the last big election season or, maybe as you get older you are just getting to the place where you would just like things to stay the same for a week or two, maybe a month or so.
If you are going to be running a business online using the tools of Social Media for marketing you need to get used to things changing fast… even if you don’t like that. I share that with you because I need to remember that for myself, case in point….
I was busy last week getting ready to fly out to Chicago to run a video crew to record a four day event and so I missed this “little” change that Facebook pulled off on April 19th. Over the weekend when I logged into my Facebook account to checkup on a couple friends (yes real friends that posted something I needed to read) I saw this message…
I had time today to do a little research and now I see that the Facebook programmers have been at it again… messing with what I had finally managed to learn. Here is the explanation that Facebook gives for the change.
Why did “Become a Fan” change to “Like”?
To improve your experience and promote consistency across the site, we…
To improve your experience and promote consistency across the site, we’ve changed the language for Pages from “Fan” to “Like.” We believe this change offers you a more light-weight and standard way to connect with people, things and topics in which you are interested.
So do you understand now? Maybe they should have called this a “Follow” button rather than Like as you might want to click on a person, business, political party, music group or any number of other Facebook Pages that you want to look at or follow along to see what they are posting but, you may not truly LIKE them.
So maybe folks didn’t want to JOIN something but perhaps they don’t want to LIKE it either. If you were the Facebook god/goddess (programmers) what do you think this should be called?
If you wish to try and keep up with all the changes and updates that Facebook is doing visit and bookmark AllFacebook.com.
WhoIsHenry Blog Rebuild Done – I Think
Feb 3rd
- Image via Wikipedia
It has taken about a week but I think I have my WhoIsHenry.com website rebuilt to the way I want it. I have added some new features to make it more visitor friendly including the ability to subscribe to my RSS Feed at Feedburner, now managed by Google, by just entering your current email address. Once a day you will receive an email with the content of my recent post(s), if I posted new content in the past day.
Now I want to find out what you my subscribers and visitors want to learn from me. As you may already know, I have over 16 years of background working with computers, computer networks and the Internet. I built my first websites back in 1994 and created the first website for my local bank in 1995. For the past two years I have worked full-time in my own business operating from my home, Caribou Coffee and Panera Bread (love FREE WiFi).
In November of 2009 I completely rebuilt my Web Hosting business, Missionsprings.net on the Hostgator.com system when I joined them as a reseller of their hosting services. My focus is building and hosting WordPress CMS (Content Management Systems) websites for my customers. If you are in need of excellent website hosting and support or, you need an easy to build and maintain website, please take a few minutes to visit www.missionsprings.net
As a mentioned above, I want to find out what you wish to learn from me. Please take a couple minutes to post a comment below and tell me what areas of online marketing technology are giving you the most trouble or what you need to learn to more your business forward in 2010.
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New Year, New Decade and Time for a New Look for WhoIsHenry.com Blog
Jan 29th
If things are looking a little messy when you visit my website today it’s because I’m doing some remodeling of my website here at WhoIsHenry.com.
About six months back my I had a major change with my business plans so I’ve been working more on other websites and projects and not doing much with this blog. Now that I’m further along with those projects we are working on doing the updates and theme changes that I want to make here on WhoIsHenry.com
It will probably take a week or two until I get things the way I want them so please pardon the mess while we work. I’ll give you a full update to the new things that are going on here after the site remodeling is done.
FREE Coaching Call Tonight February 2nd, What is Your Question?
Feb 2nd
This coming weekend I will be speaking at the 4th Outsourcing and Leveraging Workshop hosted by my friend and business partner Jeff Mills.
See Jeff’s news release below for more information.
Tonight Jeff is doing a Coaching and Q & A Call with Internet Legend John Jonas – Founder of ReplaceMyself.com
What is your biggest question about Outsourcing? Jeff and John will answer as many as they can tonight at 9:00 pm EST for 1 hour. This is primarily a call for Jeff’s coaching students but he is making this available for everyone tonight to help promote the Outsource Workshop that is coming up this weekend. We only have a couple seats remaining. If you want to join us VISIT THIS LINK FOR MORE INFORMATION.
Come submit your question and join Jeff and John tonight by visiting THIS LINK.
Twin Cities Outsourcing Firm to Host 4th Outsourcing Workshop Feb 6-8
Posted: 01 Feb 2009 09:29 AM CST
Minneapolis, MN Feb. 1, 2009 – Jeff Mills has been in the public eye for a long time helping busy entrepreneurs to relish in the exciting world he’s discovered with internet marketing and now… outsourcing with his new company, www.trafficmills.com.
He’s hosting a brand new workshop – the Outsource Secrets Revealed Workshop, which takes place February 6-8, 2009 in Bloomington, MN at the Radisson Water Park of America Hotel, near the Mall of America.
Jeff wants each and every person who owns a small business or is thinking of working from home to see the advantages of using and tapping into the worldwide outsourcing resources readily available on the web.
“I first heard about the concept of using Outsourcers from one of my online marketing mentors back in 2004, who was making millions per year. I asked him how he worked so little, launched multiple products per year, and still had enough free time and he told me it was because he ‘Outsourced’ all his projects through internet vendors that he was able to live with sanity, work less and still increase his revenues!� said Mills.
Since that conversation in 2004, Jeff has mastered the online outsourcing phenomenon and seen his business hit 7 figures, all while working from a tiny closet office in his Cottage Grove, MN home.
Jeff Mills has quickly become the “Napoleon Hill of Outsourcing� as some of his clients call him, due to the fact that Jeff has interviewed over 30 different successful internet marketers who all claim their fortunes and lifestyles come not from all the products they sell, but from the advantages they found by hiring independent contractors to get jobs done for them that pay $2-$4 per hour in 3rd world countries!
Earlier this year, Jeff released this flagship product called, Outsource Secrets Revealed, a 15 DVD disc volume where he interviewed on live webinars, the top internet marketers in the world and somehow got them all to share their secret resources and techniques for how they outsource and work less, while making more money. His product has gone on to sell over 6 figures, and has spawned sub products like a monthly Outsourcing Coaching program, a free 70 page eBook called the Outsource Compendium, and now his Outsourcing Workshops, which Mills holds every 3 months in the Twin Cities of Minnesota.
“My outsourcing tools provide busy entrepreneurs and small business owners with the knowledge and know-how to actually increase their sales and to increase the money that they are bringing in – simply by knowing the basics of where to find good people and how to get tasks done cheaper and faster at the same time. People want blogs built, websites coded, software designed, social media profiles created, videos produced and sent to video hosting site, articles written and submitted and all that takes time and effort. We show people how to get others doing that work at ridiculously low fees, while saving a ton of time too,�said Mills.
By attending Jeff Mills’ new Outsource Secrets Revealed Workshop, a person can learn how to take what they’ve already got and help their business to grow in ways that they would never have dreamed of before.
The Outsourcing and Leveraging Workshop is a way for business owners or for those who want to work at home to figure out what they’re doing right, and to do more of it, as well as figure out what they could be doing differently, and then make the changes that are necessary in order to achieve their goals, by outsourcing where it makes sense.
The Outsourcing Secrets Revealed Workshop will have a number of excellent speakers presenting.
• John Jonas will be talking about hiring service providers from the Philippines.
• Sandy Cashman will share insights about discovering what your dreams and passions are so you can focus in on what you are best at and then learn how to outsource the rest!
• Henry Griner will be sharing how to outsource by hiring a project manager to oversee your tasks and where to find good people all over the world who are skilled and excellent in internet marketing.
• And Jeff Mills will be speaking about putting the whole Virtual team concept together and how a solo entrepreneur or small business owner can begin outsourcing by setting up proper structures and systems inside the business.
Anyone who wishes to be able to maximize their own potential, and the potential of the business that they currently have is invited to attend the Outsource Workshop but seats are extremely limited.
For additional information on the Outsource Secrets Revealed Workshop, contact Jeff Mills or visit http://outsourceworkshop.com.
ABOUT JEFF MILLS – Jeff Mills has been providing his clients with ways to manage their time and money since 2003 with his boutique internet marketing firm called, Goldmills Marketing. Having sold and marketed over $2 million dollars in product and services, Jeff is uniquely qualified to help your small business get to the next level in productivity and profits.
Jeff Mills’ Outsource Workshop #4 Starts February 7th
Jan 31st
Next weekend, February 7-8th my friend and business partner Jeff Mills is holding his fourth Outsource Workshop in Bloomington, Minnesota. I will again be one of the workshop presenters teaching attendees what I have learned as Jeff’s Project Manager.
http://www.veoh.com/videos/v16409838g24aKgYMI will provide information about how people can build a team of outsourcers to work for you to build your business and do the work that you can’t or don’t want to learn to do yourself. I’ll take you inside the team management tools that I use to manage and track our projects. I will demonstrate the FREE “instant videoâ€? tool that I use to quickly show our team members how to do a task.
We have some exciting new presenters joining us for the weekend and I’m looking forward to meeting them and learning from them myself.
There are still 3 seats available for the workshop.
If you want to move your business forward fast in 2009 you need to join us. Here is a SPECIAL CODE at the bottom of THIS PAGE that you can use to save $1800 off the full price of this 2 day event. Read the information on the page but don’t delay as many hundreds of people are going to read this page and visit this website in the next couple days.
Only 3 More People will get in the doors! Will you be one?
Merry Christmas and the Gift of No JOB
Dec 25th
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 1st 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 25th 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.
Henry Griner Speaking at Jeff Mills’ Outsource Workshop – Nov. 8-9
Nov 7th
This weekend my friend and business partner Jeff Mills is holding his third Outsource Workshop in Bloomington, Minnesota. I will again be one of the workshop presenters teaching attendees some of the tips and tricks (the guru’s call them secrets… right!) that people who want to build their own home based online businesses need to know.
http://www.veoh.com/videos/v16409838g24aKgYMI will teach the class how to install, setup and configure the world’s best software system for content management… WordPress. During this workshop time I will take the attendees inside the WordPress Dashboard the online management tool that is totally web based and have them write new pages and post information, images and videos to the blog.
I will also provide information about how people can build a team of outsourcers to work for you to build your business and do the work that you can’t or don’t want to learn to do yourself. I’ll take you inside the team management tool that I use to track and manage our projects, dotProject. This has many of the same functions as the Microsoft Project software but this is FREE.
As we did in September for the Midwest Super Conference, Jeff has decided to provide a Live Video Stream of the whole weekend workshop to those who are not able to attend in person. He’s offering people the ability to watch his $1997 Internet Marketing Outsource Workshop online via a live video stream, right over the web, for a ridiculous low price.
For basically the cost of a medium cheese pizza, Jeff is gonna let you watch, listen and learn from the top Outsourcing and Internet Marketing experts around. If you can’t be with us in person this is the next best thing to it.
You can order the live stream and also get a special price on the DVD set which will be available about 2 weeks after the event.
We have some exciting new presenters joining us this weekend and I’m looking forward to meeting them and learning from them myself. If you are not able to join us in person, I hope you will via the Live Streaming Video Link. You can Sign-up HERE to reserve your “virtual seat” at this weekend’s event.
