I live in Central Florida and we had the massive power outage all over the central and southern part of the state. The outage made national news. About 8 power plants were down for a few hours. One of the biggest issues with the power outage was the loss of power to many traffic lights. There were many accidents due to the powerless traffic lights. There was also a lot of traffic congestion causing many commute delays.

One thing I realized even more in this situation was how people feel about their passion or their J.O.B. Without fail, everyone that I talked to about the power outages with a JOB was either glad the power was out at their job so they didn’t have to work any more the rest of the day. Or, if the power was on where they worked, they wished it would go out for them so they didn’t have to work.

On the other hand, everyone that I talked to about the power outages that ran their own business and had a passion for what they do were glad they didn’t lose power so their work was not interrupted and they could continue to improve their business. Or, if their power was out, they couldn’t wait for it to come back on so they could get back to running their business that they loved. In fact, many of them that lost power were still working their business in ways that they didn’t need power.

You can really see the difference between those with JOB mentality and those with a freedom mentality. You can also see how people’s passions drive them to have a better business in times like this. It is really fascinating to see what really comes out of people when faced with challenges.

What do you do when the power goes out? Do you use it as an excuse to be lazy or do you look for ways to make the most of the time and still get things done?

- Hill Robertson

Submitting your blog to blog carnivals is one of the best ways to get quality targeted traffic to your blog. I am launching a new type of blog carnival submission service. It is a “pay per post” type of service. It is not a subscription service. This allows you to pick and choose the blog posts that you want to submit to the carnivals and when you want to submit them.

You can get it here:

http://hillrobertson.com/BlogCarnivalSubmissionService

All you have to do is purchase a submission and submit your blog post info in a simple form. Then, just wait for your information to be submitted to various blog carnivals that are related to the topic of your post. You will start to see your links posted to carnivals as they are issued. The links will start trickling in. The more submissions you make, the more links you get.

My service also allows you to stand out by giving you the option to add your own remarks about the blog post. This can be a summary or some sort of “teaser” to get readers to click on your link. This can be a very big advantage over the other blogs posted to the carnivals because most other blog links will just have the minimum information required.

Start sending quality traffic to your blog with my blog carnival submission service by clicking on the following link:

http://hillrobertson.com/BlogCarnivalSubmissionService

Submit your blog posts now.

- Hill Robertson

Did you miss the password for the last post? Sorry…..

The passwords for private (protected) posts are sent to my subscribers that are subscribed via email (not external RSS readers). They get sent out prior to the private posts.

If you want the password for future private postings, please subscribe at the top right of this page so you will get future notifications. If you do, you will also get other benefits such as early product launches and/or discounts as well as extra little tid bits here and there.

All you need to do is enter your first name and your primary email address. I will NEVER sell or give your information to anyone. I hate spam myself with a passion since I host websites and have web/email servers all over the country and I know what a pain it is dealing with it. You’ll want to use your primary email address to hopefully avoid spam filters that drop so much of the valid mail these days (especially to free email accounts).

You can always cancel your subscription at any time if you want to quit getting emails.

Go ahead and sign up if you haven’t already……….. Do it now.

- Hill Robertson

Do you have business systems in place that do work for you whether you do anything or not? A business system in place that gives you the freedom to focus on other areas of your business or take care of other matters is one of the key ingredients to a successful business.

Today was a great example of how one of my business systems kept my internet business rolling along while I was unable to. You see, today, I had an appointment with my eye doctor. I was planning on a normal checkup with no interruption to my regular business and family activities. However, it turned out that I needed to have my eyes dilated for some of the tests. Getting your eyes dilated in not fun at all. It disrupts a lot of your routine.

After the procedure, I had to wear 2 pairs of sunglasses (at the same time) to keep the light low enough to not be painful to my eyes. They said my eyes would not be “normal” for at least 3 or 4 hours. As soon as I got home, I got in bed and covered my head so there was no light getting to my eyes so I could have some relief until my pupils returned to normal. I had to wait a few more hours before they felt normal again. In fact, I kept the sunglasses on for the first few hours on my computer (and we’re talking at night) just to stay comfortable.

Anyway, thanks to my business systems in place, I didn’t have to worry about many of my normal functions (such as blog carnival submissions). If I had to submit them myself, my eyes could not have handled it and I probably would be in too much pain to write this blog posting.

So, set up as many business systems as you can to reduce the work you have to do yourself. This will free up your time to focus on other areas of your business (or let you go to the eye doctor and have your eyes dilated).

- Hill Robertson

One of the most important pieces of a successful business of any kind is having a list of “customers”. My email subscription list is basically my list of customers. It doesn’t mean that any of them buy anything. But they do have an interest in the information I post on this blog. In a way it is similar to someone visiting a store and browsing the merchandise. Let’s look at an example…..

If I like model trains, I may visit a particular model train store every now and then to see what new trains are in stock. I probably won’t buy anything the first few times I visit the store but I will probably have a good time since I like model trains. While I visit the store, I may talk with the owner on occasion and build some sort of relationship with the owner. It still doesn’t mean I will buy anything. However, if someone else I know mentions something about model trains, there is a good chance I will mention the store that I like to visit. This is word of mouth advertising and can be very powerful for any business.

I would probably visit the train store many more times since I enjoy it and may learn something new about model trains that I didn’t know before. I will also probably meet some other people in the store that have something in common with me - model trains. This is even more reinforcement for me to return to the store another time.

Then, one day when I finally decide to buy a model train, I know exactly where to go. There is really not much “selling” or “pitching” the owner would have to do since I already have a relationship with the owner and have a sense of trust with him or her. I would probably even pay a little bit more to the store than I would to someone else that I do not know.

Blogs are really not much different. They are your “store” if you will. It is a place where your “customers” return on a regular basis and build a relationship with you and build a trust with you. They will keep coming back to see what is new with you and to hopefully learn a little bit more about what they enjoy.

This is one of the reasons it is so important to build a subscriber list. It allows you to let your subscribers (customers) know when you have updated your “inventory” or have some more words of wisdom to share with them. If you sell something through your blog, your frequent visitors will many times be the first to purchase your products since they already know you and trust you.

So, be sure to have an opt-in form so your visitors can subscribe to your blog and you can keep them informed and continue to build a relationship that will last a very long time.

One of the reasons I have started implementing the private posts is to encourage frequent visitors to sign up for my blog notification subscription so they can be added to my customer list. Subscribers benefit too with valuable information posts that I don’t publish to everyone and also with special product discounts or early releases.

Do you have a list for your business? You should. If not, get started right now….

- Hill Robertson

Are you subscribed to this blog yet? I’m going to start posting private blog entries very soon (hint, hint). You must be subscribed to my email blog announcement list to get the password. If you are not yet subscribed, submit your info at the top right of this blog before any private posts are made if you want the password to be able to read them.

Don’t wait too long before you subscribe. If you do, you may miss out on some valuable information or product discounts. Also, the popup window will go away after you subscribe if you use cookies.

Subscribe to this blog right now. Your information will remain private and will never be sold or given away.

- Hill Robertson

Did you just have a fleeting thought that you should blog about? If you did, stop reading this right now and blog it or at least write it down so you won’t forget it. Don’t just write down the topic. You need to go ahead and write down all of your thoughts while they are flowing and fresh in your mind. During this time you are “in the moment” and your emotion and passion are actively engaged.

These “in the moment” thoughts will be your best blogs because your passion and emotion will shine through every word. It will set you apart from other bloggers and your true personality will be evident. This is what your readers are craving. They want to know more about you. It is all about relationship with your readers, right?

This blog entry itself is one of those thoughts that just hit me. In fact, I was on my way to get a cup of coffee when it came to my mind so I immediately stopped in my tracks and pulled out my phone (Treo 700P) to start blogging right then and there. I am now putting the finishing touches on this post before posting it.

Just let the words flow. Do not take time to correct your spelling and grammar. If you do, your will lose your train of thought. Just keep writing until you write everything that comes to mind while you are in the moment. You can go back later and correct any spelling and grammatical errors.

If you don’t have a phone with blogging or memo capabilities, keep a small notepad with you that you can write on when an idea hits you. Or, you may even want to have an small electronic recording device with you that you can whip out and record yourself talking your thoughts that you can later transcribe to your blog. Another way you can capture your thoughts without buying anything is to call your own phone and leave a voice message to yourself. This is especially handy when you are driving and can’t easily stop to write something down.

The bottom line is, blog it as soon as you think about it. Blog it or forget it.

- Hill Robertson

Your long term goal in having your own internet business is so you can spend less time working and spend more time doing what you want to do, right? You don’t want to just shift from a job working for someone else to your own job that consumes even more of your time, right? Too many times that’s exactly what ends up happening. Sometimes it can be even more of a burden having your own business because you are the head honcho and have to make sure everything is running as smoothly as possible. You could end up being a slave at your own business. You don’t want to end up like that.

In the early years of my internet business, I just wanted customers and would bend over backwards to get them. I would promise them the world on their website and then spend 10 or so hours a week working on their site for a whopping $50 per month. Let’s see, that works out to about $5 per hour. Not even minimum wage….. That’s not a very good business model. After a while, I slowly started picking up more customers and learned how to better value my time and adjusted prices and more importantly my hours accordingly.

The key to being able to spend less time on each customer’s site was setting up a business system. A good business system allows you to accomplish tasks with little or even no time involved (or at least not YOUR time). For my particular case, I wrote software that would create websites automatically based on some simple customer input. You could think of it as an automatic template. I would plug in the customers information into my software and the software would create the website with the customers data, set up their email accounts, update the DNS entries, configure the database, load up the site on the webserver, and turn the site on. Everything would be complete in just a few seconds. This process would have taken several hours to do manually (and it did until I wrote the software). This software and the process of using it became one of my business systems. Business systems are essential to a successful business so you can devote your time to growing your business. I did not set up business systems for some of the processes that were essential to the growth of the business in the beginning and I am still paying the price to some degree for not implementing a business system earlier.

I would recommend that you document your processes that you do to run your business. Then, take each process and see if you can create a business system that can do the task for you whether it is a software program that does it or you outsource the task to someone else. Either way, do what needs to be done to get the same tasks completed without you having to spend your time on it. This will allow you to spend your time on other important tasks. If possible, do this with all parts of your business as you grow. You will compound your time and efforts this way. Your business will get closer and closer to running without you. It will begin to take on a life of it’s own so you can have a life of your own.

- Hill Robertson