I understand the concepts of making money online.  I’m working on building my portfolio to prove that.  However, where I still have a lot to learn and discover is the business side of making everything work.  After following quite a few SEOs and affiliate marketers on Twitter, I am intrigued by how seemingly different many of their businesses operate even though they are in the same or a similar industry. 

Some of them seem to be loners, doing everything themselves or outsourcing everything.  Others have more traditional businesses with central offices and full time staff. 

As I try to find the right setup for my business, I am wanting to learn more about how these professional, successful individuals view and run their businesses.  To learn more, I am going to submit 10 questions to  a list of successful individuals in the SEO/Affiliate Marketing industry asking them questions about their business and employees.  Hopefully, we can both find some ideas as to how to structure our companies as we become more successful and grow. 

The questions I intend on asking are:

1. What is the main long-term focus of your online business?
2. How many full time and part time employees do you have and what roles do they play in your business (developer, copy writers, designers, etc)?
3. If you had to start over again from scratch, what would be the first position you would hire someone full-time for and why?
4. Do your employees work in a central office, or are they “virtual”. 
5. How are your full-time employees compensated (if any): hourly, salary, other.
6. Now that your business is successful, what role do you currently play?  Are you still hands-on building projects, a manager, a big ideas guy, just an overseer, etc?
7. On average, how many hours per week do you currently spend working?
8. On average, how much time do you spend writing a typical blog post. 
9. In your opinion, what is your strongest characteristic that has allow you to become successful in this market where others have failed?
10. Name one other person in your industry that you look up to and describe why.

Let’s see how many responses we actually receive. 

It seems like every lazy, do-nothing person I come across wants me to show them how I make a living working for myself and explain to them how they too can work very little and make a load of cash.

Unfortunately, that is the stereotype most people have of the self-employed, especially those of us working on the Internet. I have friends, family, and acquaintances alike asking me for advice on cutting back their hours and increasing their incomes.

I can leave, take the day off, and get into the office when I want. Sounds like the perfect job, right? How is it that I can work so little and make so much, they wonder.

The latest request came in today. A family member wanted me to show him how to make money on the “computer” as he put it. This request got me thinking about exactly how hard I am working.

I’ll have to admit, my time is down a little lately. I’ve been tired and haven’t been pushing as hard as I usually do. So, I decided to add up my time and get an idea of exactly how lazy I have been over the last few weeks. After adding it up, I came to the shocking conclusion that I have recently only really been averaging three days of work per week.

That’s right, with 24 hours in the day, three days equals 72 hours. No wonder I stay backed up and always seem to be swamped. How could anyone really expect to be productive only working 72 hours a week? Maybe next week I’ll try to increase it to a 4 day work week.

You would be amazed at how quickly people like their 9 to 5 work schedule after they follow me and my 3 day work week.

I guess this is just one of those things that has to grow on you.  It wasn’t two days ago I was thinking of giving up Twitter.  A good week of tweeting and I was ready to call it quits.  I had no use for just rambling to myself.  However, as we often do after a bad breakup, I’ve seen the light.  I’ve been a bad twitterer.  I didn’t appreciate your specialness and now, I hope you can forgive me. 

Twitter, you mean so much to me, and I just want to apologize.  I spent that last several days taking your advice and following more people and adding a few followers of my own.  In doing so, I discovered what makes you so special.   Below is a brief summary of what I have been getting from you that helps make me better at what I do. 

Inspiration
The level of interaction with people I don’t truly know is fantastic.  Through Twitter, I have a general idea of how other, more well known people in my industry spend segments of their day.  There is no other way I could have gotten this information.  It is too mundane to blog those details, and with most of these people that is our only contact with them. 

For me, this interaction is the most inspirational part of Twitter.  It makes industry celebrities into humans.  I can see that those slightly ahead of me on the success curve struggle with the same things I do.  I can see that most have more opportunities and ideas than they have time.  I know that there are others that are having to worry about distractions such as kids getting to school before they start their day.  I know that I am not far from being where these people are and that they are not super human or have some extraordinary ability to get things done that I don’t possess.  The only difference is that more people know their name and they have been doing it longer than I have. 

Constant Updates
Yesterday, I had the opportunity to be in a video conference with the owner of JohnCow.com.  It was a fun, entertaining, and moderately informational look into someone else’s world. The chat lasted an hour or so, and the only way I knew about it was that I follow John Cow on Twitter.

These constant updates are what really provides the power behind Twitter.  As soon as I post this blog, my followers will be instantly messaged updates letting them know I have something new to read. Using Twitter, I am more easily able to stay up on the latest industry news and projects that my fellow associates are working on. I have learned more about other people in my industry over the last several days than I knew about them in the last 10 years I have been building websites in isolation.   

Twitter, hopefully you can see that I have learned my lesson and will never forsake your usefullness again.  Please forgive me. 

After a week or so of Twittering, I have come to the conclusion that Twittering is for the rich. You either have the followers and can carry on a decent conversation or you don’t and it is just kinda depressing.

Serioiusly, with only a couple of followers that never twitter, aren’t you just talking to yourself? I actually considered signing up for another twitter account so that I could answer myself. Don’t they put people in straight jackets for that?

It is not often that the attire at work is an issue at Jamersan. The first thing any good southerner learns is that coming to work in anything other than overalls is just plain silly. However, Bessie, our parking lot attendant has a new found crush on Shoemoney and decided to wear one of his famous Shoemoney logo shirts to work today. I know, it’s a little frivolous for a company as small as ours to have a parking lot attendant, but we like to splurge on our employees. The faster we can get them out of the car, the sooner they can be inside working. So, we decided to have someone park cars for us. Plus it helps to have someone on the lookout for hunters, snakes, mice or anything else that might do some damage to your car while we are working hard.

Regardless, Bessie is one of Shoemoney’s biggest fans (no pun intended, she is a rather large girl).  Below is a picture of Bessie in her new Shoemoney shirt. Hope you enjoy.

This post is a little advice for those just starting out in business. As is with most web entrepreneurs, Jamersan is not my first rodeo. I did, however, start off in the internet realm designing and developing websites in college. Over the last 11 years I have endeavored into several more traditional businesses without much success. Regardless, my failures have taught me much more about myself and the business world in general than my successes. Without those failures, There is no way I would be where I am today. With that, I offer a little advice that I have picked up over time.

Average Reward
When starting a business in any market, you need to consider and compare what you are risking vs the average reward for such a business. This simple little comparison can save you the headache of chasing business that offer very little chance of bringing a return.

First, let’s look at the reward side of the equation. This is where most people begin thinking about their business anyway and begin dreaming of the tons of cash it will soon be bringing in. Unfortunately, this rarely is the case. When considering reward, don’t get caught up in all the hype and glamor by just looking at the big earners in your industry. You want to know the AVERAGE REWARD. See what the struggling companies are doing. What is the failure rate of a business in your market? Be honest with yourself. It is easy to get emotionally attached to an idea or skip through this step.

Your time has value. Make sure you consider that in your risk costs when you are tallying them up. If you had a job somewhere and worked the time you are spending on this venture how much would you make that you will now be losing? If you are able to work a full time job and do this in your extra hours, you can discount this time value some but it should always be a factor.

For instance, when starting a restaurant, it is easy to look at your local Olive Garden and see the big business they are bringing in. However, if you did your research you would realize that the average restaurant fails. That’s right, average reward in the restaurant industry is near zero. For every one that makes it, there are two that close.

The Risk
The risk needed to start a business is often difficult to measure without fully understanding the industry you will be in. You need to completely calculate everything you will need to purchase and pay for, and include how much time you need to spend on the business. In many businesses, this can be quite an extensive list. Do you need employees? Well, then it gets more complicated with taxes, insurances, offices, etc… Don’t short yourself here by leaving things out and always over estimate. One simple underestimation could be the difference between having what it takes to make this business work and not.

As Einstein would say, risk is relative. For one person, risking $1,000 on a business venture is difficult. For others, it is very little risk. You need to calculate how much you are risking and how big of a risk that is for you.

Compare Risk vs Average Reward
Take the risk and compare it versus your average reward. Is it worth it? I owned a BBQ Restaurant for all of 6 months. It probably cost me around $15,000 cash not including time spent on it. Had I done my research, I would have realized that I was risking $15,000 on a business venture that has an average return around $0. I would have passed and invested my $15,000 on something more lucrative and would probably be richer for it. For me, that was a high risk, low reward type of business. Not exactly ideal.

I guess this is where the internet intrigues me the most. The initial investment is minimal: a computer, and a ton of your time. All that is required on the internet to be successful is someone that is willing to put the time in to get the job done and continue to learn and adapt. Low risk, moderate average reward is more the industry I want to be in.

AJ Vaynerchuk posted an interesting and thought provoking article on Shoemoney’s blog about how Twitter is outranking Facebook for just about every major SEO/Affiliate Marketing heavyweight’s name in the Google Serps.

The reasons Twitter outranks Facebook is fairly simple in my opinion.  First, much of the content and networking on Facebook is private and cannot be seen and indexed by the search engines.  This gives Facebook a distinct disadvantage in that much of the links between facebook accounts cannot be measured.  Twitter, on the other hand, does everything out in the open and when someone follows you it automatically creates backlinks from that person’s account to  yours when you post.

This little nugget of information that AJ has discovered is important for those looking for ways to use social networking as a link building tool.  What we can now see is that building a twitter account and increasing your following could be a recipe for a nice one way link juice machine.

Be sure to read AJ’s post at Shoemoney.com.

I recently wrote a blog posts asking your opinion on the happenings at Yahoo of late. The acquisition offers by Microsoft and the announced discussions with Google have made Yahoo the talk of the SEO world. Because of their broad readership, I posted this article on the SEOMoz blog in the YouMoz section to try and gauge other’s opinion.

Visit SEOMoz to view the entire post and state your opinion.

I was thinking of writing a nice post on link building and explaining in detail the different types of links that are available. I was then going to outline the differences in these link types and and provide tips on how you need to go about getting these links.

It would have been a good post, right? Well, luckily for me I don’t have to put forth all that effort because Adam Audette at Audette Media has done all the hard work for me with his article The Fundamentals of Link Building.

If you are new to SEO, need a little link building motivation, or are trying to find good resources that help you explain your craft to clients then Adam’s article on link building is a must read.

I once went to look at having a classic car restored by a man that had been doing this type of work his entire life. The first question he asked me is the same question I typically ask my clients:

How far do you want to go with this project?

Puzzled by the question the first time I heard it, I asked “What do you mean?”. This old auto restorer explained to me that with any project, it will take an arbitrary amount of effort, time, and money to get a project to 95% complete and perfect. So, to get this car 95% perfect, it will take X hours and dollars. For each percentage point closer to perfect you want it, it is going to take another X amount of hours and dollars. For instance, 97% perfect is going to take X to get to 95, another X to 96, and then another to 97 leaving you with 3X.

That is why most people will stop at 95% and are satisfied with the project because the remaining 5% is not worth the trouble and additional costs. However, if you drive out in your 95% completed car just about everyone else is going to have one also. It is that additional 5% that separates the good from the great.

I have been able to apply this lesson learned to just about every project I do, including website development and SEO. This 5% is what is separating your $5 a month Adwords site from the super affilate sites that are bringing in thousands. They were willing to put in the work and spend the time and money necessary to be successful and thus far you have not.

Now quit reading other people’s blogs and get to work.