Bob Started

There are many times where an entrepreneur has to do mundane tasks that he thinks is a waste of time.  That’s a part of starting your own company, isn’t it?

In the past – yes.  But not anymore with the wide range of virtual assistant services available.

I can find someone in India, Singapore, or the Philippines to program a website for me in less than 24 hours.

You can find virtual assistants in other countries by using the following websites:

1. Rentacoder
2. Elance
3. Odesk
4. Craiglist

International workers are not always the best route to go, but they can save you time and money.  it is also possible to find relatively cheap labor in the United States by using Craigslist.

If you haven’t worked with international workers, using one of these services to outsource can be an eye opening experience.  With cultural, language, and time zone difficulties, outsourcing internationally can teach any entrepreneur vital project management skills.

I highly recommend outsourcing a project just to get your feet.  Once you try it once, you will probably get excited about the possibilities and outsource more projects than you may think is possible.

Best Regards,

Robert M. Cavezza

(Bob)

I often frequent the business section at Barnes and Noble and no other book has changed my philosophy on small business more than the Four Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss. If you haven’t read this book, you should – you will be in for a treat.

Here’s my one sentence summary of the book.

Tim Ferriss teaches you how to take control of your life.

The book is more about small business, outsourcing, and world travel. This book is about changing your philosophy about life. Tim discusses the term life deferment. This refers to the typical nine to five working schedule where many adults delay actually living their life until they plan on retiring. This isn’t the way I want to live. This isn’t the way I want anyone I care about to live.

I want every person I know to live on their terms. I want to be able to go to every one of my kid’s soccer games when they get older. I don’t want to be told I have to be in an office for 8 or 9 hours a day.

Tim’s work is the closest blueprint for taking control of your life that I have ever read. I want everyone I care about to read this book and take control of their life.

Tim, thank you for writing this book. I am sure you have helped thousands of people across the globe take control of their life.

For more information about Tim’s book, you can visit the Four Hour Work Week’s Official Website.

If you’re working in a home office you need to emphasize the office and deemphasize the home. You may not always work normal nine to five hours, but when you work… work!

If you are working and you have the tv on – turn it off. Many people tell themselves that they can work better with the tv on.

Most people are lying to themselves.

Do yourself a favor. Turn the tv off and watch your productivity soar.

If tv is a major part of your life, you can turn off the tv and then reward yourself for your hard work by taking a half hour break every so often to watch a full show.

If you alternate working for two hours and watching tv for one hour, you will be much more productive than working for three hours with the tv on. This is because when the tv is on, you constantly get distracted and it takes a certain amount of time to refocus and concentrate on each task.

Studies have proven that listening to classical music can increase productivity. If you are a person that needs background noise, listen to classical music.

In closing, do yourself a favor – turn off the tv.

Robert M. Cavezza
(Bob)

When I first started my companies, it was often quite difficult to find projections for the amount of money you can make with online advertising.

This link will show you how much you can expect to make.

The general rule of thumb is that the more targeted your webpage is, the more money you can make per each visitor.

General population news websites can make anywhere from $0.10 to $5.00 per 1,000 website visitors.  Highly targeted websites can earn anywhere from $15-$70 per 1,000 visitors.  Keep in mind that the more targeted your website is, the less traffic you are likely to attain.

Want to get started making money right away?  This blogpost can help jumpstart your blogging moneymaker.  Don’t forget that starting a blog takes a lot of time and dedication.  Nine times out of ten, the reward isn’t worth the effort, but if you can create an extremely popular blog, there is a high possibility of extremely high earnings potential.

I hope this helps anyone who is interested in starting a blog or website of their own.

Best,

Robert M. Cavezza

(Bob)

I read that it is a good practice to make a to-do list for the next day before you go to sleep.  After I took some time to think about the current projects on my plate, I made a list of all the items I wanted to accomplish today.  I even put time frames and specific quantitative measures for each item.

So far.  So good.

I have met every one of my deadlines so far today.  I have a pretty tight deadline for finishing the entire look and feel of one of our new website projects by 3:00pm EST, so I better get to it.

I think I first heard of this practice either in Brian Tracey’s Eat That Frog or in The Art of Getting Things Done.  Either way, you should check out both of these books.  They can greatly increase your productivity at the workplace and at home.

Robert M. Cavezza

(Bob)

In an effort to increase my productivity, I am will begin using this blog as a journal for my entrepreneurial ventures.

Top 4 goals for this year:

1. Get accepted into Babson College to study entrepreneurship (I will know if I am accepted on January 15th)
2. Achieve over $80,000 in revenues from all ventures
3. Achieve over $60,000 in profits from all ventures
4. Have each venture 85% automated or sold before starting classes in September

Three days into the new year and I am having doubts about some of my current projects.

SmarterDrinker.com is still in its development phase.  Yes, it has been in development for over a year.  I am very uneasy about the possibility of success for SmarterDrinker.com because of the state online advertising.  Revenues have been decreasing since tech bubble in the late nineties.  If I plan on selling one or two ventures in the first half of the year, SmarterFootball.com will definitely be one of them.

2DollarFantasy.com is a new fantasy football website I am putting together.  There is not much information online for dynasty auction fantasy football leagues.  I am building this website with hopes that I will create over 1,000 loyal followers that will be willing to pay $4 per month for access to the website.  Not only is this a niche website with devoted followers, but it is also a passion of mine.  If I can charge $4 per month and find 1,000 subscribers, I will come very close to achieving my goals for the year.

I had an idea for a Fraternity Recruiting Book for some time.  I started writing my story a few months ago.  I write approximately 10 pages and used my work to facilitate a seminar for members of Phi Sigma Kappa this past summer at the annual convention.  Reading an internet marketing book the other day, I had the idea to use other’s stories to help write the book.  I am in the middle of finding recruiting success stories to feature in the book.  I am attempting to use some of Tim Ferriss’s guidelines for this product.  I want to create the product in four weeks or less.  Using this milestone, I want the product to be finished and ready to ship on January 31st.

SmarterFootball.com has made serious progress during the past few months.  Although we no longer have office space, we do have a preview website being hosted at smarterfootball.com.  The coding for the main areas of the website are almost finished.  We now have to integrate the existing code to our new design.  Smarter Football is online software to help guide high school athletes through the recruiting process.  The website will be fully automated once we lunch – that’s exciting!

Pennza Mobile Detailing is our baby.  We started this company while we were still in college.  It is easy to find customers, but has proven to be difficult performing the service and finding employees.  A key need for this year is to find a pool of part-time workers than can complete each job so we can concentrate on building the business.

This is where I am with my existing companies.

Looking at each venture, I can categorize them into a few categories.

Most Likely to make money this month

1. Pennza Mobile Detailing

Most Likely to make money next month

1. Smarter Football
2. Fraternity Recruiting Book
3. Pennza Mobile Detailing

Most Likely to make money before the end of the year

1. 2dollarfantasy

Most Likely to never make money

1. SmarterDrinker.com

After reviewing these lists, my highest priority projects will be Smarter Football, The fraternity book, and Pennza Mobile Detailing.

I will work on 2dollarfantasy.com whenever I have free time and I will only work on Smarter Drinker sparingly.

Keep on the lookout for more updates in the coming days, weeks, and months.

The Shark Tank started this past weekend on ABC.  The show consists of six “sharks” who act as venture capitalists and angel investors.  I think the show is a great learning experience for anyone who has an idea or company to pitch to investors.  There are a few key things to keep in mind when watching the show. 

When Investors Invest

VCs and angel investors never invest in an idea.  Seed capital is the initial money to test an idea.  This money is very hard to find and is very risky for the investor.  This is why most startups begin with money from savings, credit cards, friends, and family.  It is not impossible (but close to impossible), and when you find seed capital, the investors will want an extremely large equity stake in turn for their money.

Angel investors and venture capitalists want to see results.  They want to see sales, profits, and potential for growth.  If I give someone $200,000 or more, I want to make sure the idea works.  Words someone tells you can lie.  Sales, profits, and sales orders don’t lie.  If you have a viable idea and you want money to expand your company, make sure you can prove it with past performance.   

VC & Angel Investing Minimums

Angel investors usually invest anywhere from $100,000 to a million dollars or more.  Venture capitalists usually will not invest in a company unless there is a huge potential for growth and the company is seeking $2,000,000 or more.  Then why are many of these people asking for between $50,000 and $100,000?  The reason is because this is television and not real life.  Often, the only ways to get money if you need this small amount is by using friends & family, Small Business Administration backed bank loans, credit cards, and personal savings. 

Company Valuation

This is the most real aspect of the show.  Remember, if you are asking for $100,000 for a 10% stake in your company, you are telling the investor that you think your company is worth $1,000,000 right now.  This is where debate usually happens in the investment process.  You argue that the company is worth more and they argue the company is worth less.  Remember that this is an investment for them, and they are hoping that the company grows much quicker than the stock marketing and similar investment opportunities.  If you just have an idea, it probably isn’t worth much of anything except the costs of a patent.  A company with existing sales will have a much higher valuation than most patents and ideas.

Using cost to acquire each customer is the most efficient way to measure your overall advertising effectiveness and choose advertising methods for your start up company.

Different advertising costs will be justified based on your gross margins per sale in your company.

For example, Pennza Mobile Detailing’s advertising cost per customer is usually somewhere between $15 and $20.

This number is found by taking the amount of money spent on advertising in a give time frame divided by the number of new customers within that time frame.  For example, if We spent $400 and acquired 20 new customers, our cost per customer acquisition is $400/20, or $20 per new customer.    while if my publishing company’s customer acquisition cost was that high, I’d be homeless.

Pennza has the ability to spend this much per new customer because $100 is the least expensive package we offer and the $20 cost per customer acquisition still allows us to have a competitive profit margin.

The New Publishing company’s advertising campaign will have to be much different.  At a price of $6 to $10 per magazine, spending $20 to acquire each customer is a luxury we will not be able to afford.

Some consultants let us know direct mail would be a good option for our advertising campaign.  Here is a breakdown of the best case scenario for a direct mail campaign (per 100 letters sent out).

This simple financial projection is a recipe for disaster.  The typical response rate of direct mail is from .5% to 2%.  In the likely scenarios, you will lose money every time.

Please keep in mind that this is a very, very simple projection.  We did not take costs into consideration for sales copy, scale for the amount of letters you will mail/other discounts, costs to buy or rent the list, and customer lifetime value.  We also did not put in any costs for taking credit card orders or revenue for additional subscriptions for the magazine per each customer.

This simple example and explanation should show you just how important financial projections are.  Just because a consultant suggests a direct mail campaign does not necessarily  mean it is your best course of action.

You need to research your industry and create a detailed set of financial data and projections in Microsoft Excel or Google Spreadsheets.  The financial data will help you build your marketing plan and operations plan for the business.  Keep in mind that you should research average response rate and costs for each type of advertising you plan on using.  For example, don’t assume email response rate will be 10% if you can find data online that average response rate is less than 1% (which is true).

Ultimately, we decided that direct mail and PPC campaigns (which we use for Pennza) would be too expensive per customer acquisition in the new publishing company.  We have chosen to use social media (specifically Facebook and Twitter) as well as a weekly “questions and answers “newsletter to find potential customers and attract them to our publication.  Although this will not allow us to grow as fast as direct mail might allow, it will help keep costs per customer acquisition low and will help us to create a profit before the end of the first year.  Most magazines don’t turn a profit until 3 years in operations.

Best Regards,

Robert M. Cavezza (Bob)

There are a finite number of ways to advertise your websites online.  There are a million different places to advertise.  I created a few internet marketing pointers that you remember when creating your campaign.

You Must Have a Marketing Plan

Having a plan is the key to every marketing campaigns.  For each campaign, you should have a goal in mind.  Your plan should include goals, objectives, your methods, a marketing time line, and financial projections.

Your Traffic Must Convert

If your intention is to sell a product or service, traffic is pointless if you are not creating revenue.  When creating a marketing plan, you should always find ways to create targeted traffic.

Make sure you advertise your website on websites and communities where the community will be likely to buy your product or service.  If you are selling dog food, join a pet lover’s community.  If you are selling financial tips, join a financial community.  The more specific you make you’re marketing efforts, the less likely you will waste money by reaching consumers who are not in your target market.

Use Links to Build Relevant Traffic

SEO has been a buzzword for a few years.  SEO efforts are overrated.  Instead of using social media and blogs to build meaningful relationships with a target market, most internet marketers spam blogs in order for Google to notice a link and (hopefully) increase their website’s ranking in Google.

Optimizing a website for Google is very important, but developing meaninful relatinships with blogger’s and important communities has been shoved aside for Search Engine Optimization recently.

Many marketers don’t consider that a considerate thought or comment could intrigue readers, increase your brand equity, and build traffic to your website.  Relevant blog comments result in increased credibility for your brand.

Using robots or paid “SEO specialists” to “spam” blog comments just for a link is not only unethical, but it will also hurt your website’s brand and alienate potential customers.

Lately, I have been very efficient, but not been very effective!

As Peter Drucker has pointed out, you have to do things right, but you also have to do the right things!  For the past few weeks, I have been toiling with an html template that was being hosted on Web Presence University.  I put a lot of work into making necessary changes to the design to make it fit my needs.  I must have spent over 50 hours customizing graphics, changing the stylesheets, colors, table displays.  When I think back to it now, it was a total waste!

I am now going back to the idea and setting up a simple wordpress site design.  I am going to create different subdomains for each service I want to sell.  The services will include search engine optimization, web usability consulting, and creating online resumes.

I realize now that there will be no need to have one site created for all of these functions.  I’m going to setup a quick wordpress theme and focus on selling the services instead on designing the perfect website.

As Norm Brodsky and Guy Kawasaki always say, perfection is the enemy of “good enough”.