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Hello everyone, Antonio here. Welcome to the Infopreneur Network. Before we get started today, a special plug for the National Christian Writers Conference, a powerful event happening 14th August 2010 at Howard University in Washington DC. For more information, go to nationalchristianwritersconference.com. You do not want to miss this event. We have a lot of award winning authors and speakers available to help you write, publish, and market your story. Today, we have a special guest, Ms. Kim Beasley. She is an author, speaker, and educator, CEO of Pro Membership Services and Your Passionate Business. She helps owners go and expand the organisations through their skills and passion. I am so excited about having her on the show. She's going to share a lot of information. A wealth of knowledge, a bank that's a vault full of secrets, tips and tools for you, without further ado, welcome to the show, Ms. Kim.
Hi, Antonio. Thank you for that glorious introduction. I was sitting here and going, "Okay, is he talking about me? I do all that? Wow! I must be a busy person."
Yes, you do all that and you do it well. I have had opportunity to work with you. It's been a blessing to me and I know that your clients and mentorees are blessed as well. So tell us a little about how you got started in the business industry, Kim.
Well, I got started (Laughs) - I know this is going to sound funny, but I actually took a test in junior high that was one of those after two tests, they'll tell you what you're going to do when you become an adult. Well, way back then I was told that I would not fit into a 9 to 5 job and that was junior high school. Fast forward, I'm in college and I decide, okay, I want to get into Corporate America. So I went straight to Corporate America and it has just been work for me. I became a consultant after working for five years for a Fortune 100 Company and I still wasn't happy being a consultant. I wasn't really happy in business until I started my own business. And once I did and I went full time, even though it's not a real easy thing it still makes me happy, what I'm doing, and I'm at peace and I don't have to play all the corporate games that go on.
Now, you have an organisation called Your Passionate Business. Tell us a little information about your organisation and the products and services you provide.
Your Passionate Business specialises in helping to start up displaced workers, those who are unemployed, those who are much in a transition from Corporate America into running their own business. I specialise in providing training tools, business tools, information that will help them get started quickly. I wrote a book called "Your Passionate Business Starter Kit" that actually steps you through four steps to identify the type of business that you should start.
Now today we're going to talk about five steps to starting business online. What are the benefits of starting your business online by starting a brick and mortar store?
The advantages that I can tell you -- the very first advantage is no overhead cost associated with obtaining office space. That is the first logical thing that you can say that is in your favor when you start an online business. Yes, you do have space in your home that you may have to allocate but you don't have to pay anything extra for. Local licensing is another thing that you have to go through when you start a brick and mortar business and basically the time spent travelling from your home to your office outside of your home. There are a numbers of things that you don't go through when you have a business that you work online out of your home. You save a lot of money by doing that and the biggest benefit is you're your own boss... That's the biggest benefit.
Right. Right. And like you said, the overhead cost - because online, what are some of the costs that you may incur in running your business, Kim? Like in a service provider or something like that, in order to connect to the internet and...?
Well, when you are running your business from home, the best thing that you can do is getting a high-speed internet access. That way, you don't have to wait and wait and wait for access on the internet because the internet is a wealth of knowledge for you, especially when you're starting out. It allows you to get to the information quickly. You may have to purchase a computer. That's a vital thing when you're running a business online. You may have to purchase a printer or a fax machine. You can get an all-in-one machine that has a fax, scanner and printer all-in-one. Some people may have to purchase audio/video editing equipment. If they decide to go into a video business or video production, then they have to have cameras, they have to have all the tools necessary and the cords necessary to efficiently run their business. So it depends on the industry that you choose to go in that will determine the start-up cost for that biz.
Now, what are the five steps that we could follow to set up a business on the internet?
The very first step is research, research, research. You want to research the industry, assess potential competition and develop demographics about the industry that you are interested in. The next thing you want is to develop a business plan because if you fail to create a business plan, you are planning to fail. You know, I say that a lot and it's so true. And when you build your business plan, you want to research to build the business that solves the problem that is inherent in the industry that you're looking at. You want to develop your online presence by creating a website integrating social media into your website, interacting on social media websites, such as Facebook, LinkedIn, or Twitter and industry websites are very important also. You want to cross market. Next, you want to constantly monitor progress of your online efforts. You want to use tools such as Google alerts or other monitoring tools that can give you an assessment of how well your efforts are working. If something is not working, you either revamp it or you change it to where you are doing something else. Finally, I would say obtain a mentor who is successful in that chosen industry so that they can mentor you past those hiccups or things that can cause you to have business issues.
Now for those who need support in the website or internet - to many of us, the Web 2.0 platform is new in integrating the social media applications, is kind of foreign to us. Now, do you have any services that would help someone build a website and integrate those social media applications into the website?
Yes, I do. I offer the services of web design through my company Pro Membership Services. It's basically - there are three different levels that I help business owners. There is the DIY level which is Do it Yourself. I can create the website and you add the content. There is the DIWY or Do it With You, where I create the website and I add your content to it and so you have to maintain it, and then there is the Do it For You or DIFY level, where I not only create the website and add the content for you, but I also manage it for you, so that all you do is set it and forget it and those are three levels that I support business owners when it comes to website design.
Now, Kim, many of us, we -- I mean, it sounds great but I have a busy schedule and I want to accomplish my endeavours in building a good business. Do you have some type of training, a mentor program, because you mentioned mentoring and I think that is important. Do you have a training platform that could help us migrate into starting our business?
Yes, I do. I have what is called "Website Social Media Plan" and basically it's an opportunity for me to take the knowledge I've learned over the last 10 years in working with social media and online presence building and impart that to the people who go through the program. There are two different versions of the program, soon to be three, where you can just do it at a self-pace and take your time or you can go through live training and get enhanced training where you actually have access to additional resources that may not be available to those who just go to the self-paced level. And basically what you learn is, you learn how to create your website or maintain it, integrate social media, how to use social media to grow your business, then also you learn how to blog and drive traffic to your website.
Could you read those five steps out asked one more time, Kim, before we move on in the show?
The five steps that I suggest to people: research your industry, develop a business plan, develop an online presence, consistently monitor your progress, and then obtain a mentor.
Now why is it a good idea to do research before starting a business?
Well, research gives you an opportunity to see what others are doing, to see what's working for those who are leaders in your industry and by researching you actually can develop an environment where you are learning how that industry work. If you don't know how your industry works then you could run into potholes that can either hinder your business from going forward until you fix it and it could be a big enough pothole that it could cost you a lot of money or time. So, what research does it just gives you a foot up above your competition. It gives you that additional kick to understand the best direction to go in with your biz.
How can a person determine which industry to choose to start a business online?
Believe it or not, I feel that it is a simple process and the reason why I say this is because when you think about doing business you should always think about creating a business that centres on a skill that you already know and that you are passionate about. For instance, if you are a doctor and you specialize in giving - I guess I don't even know what kind of medical - well, let's change fields, let's change fields. Let's say that you are a lawyer and you specialize in working with Corporate America business, right?
That's right.
But you have a passion to share your knowledge. What you could do is you could get into writing books, you can get in to writing white papers, you can get in to becoming an expert witness, you know. You can do just different things, not just only representing people or representing corporations. You can diverse and create multiple streams of income with your knowledge.
Okay, because I mean you gave a great example of how - I won't say how easy it is to - I don't know if it's easy, you just make it look easy, Kim. (Laughter)
Okay, let me explain. Let me...
How long before that, because I want to address the three different businesses that you own and you're doing well online. You've taken your passion and you've started a business company, Your Passionate Business, and then your love for programming, you created a web-based design company that solves a problem in today's market, people wanting to know how to integrate Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter into their platform because it's just crazy trying to manage all the different social networks and then finally, you have a training platform when you educate people to empower themselves, so you've really proven the discussion. Now go ahead, Kim.
Well, there are basically four steps that I talk about in my starter kit, Your Passionate Business starter kit, where you just start with a list. Make a list of the things that you love to do and nothing is too crazy to go on the list. Then you go through the process of going down till you get to your top ones on the list, say the top three, then you try to think of different businesses that you can create from those three businesses. For instance, I love writing, I love computers, I love to get on the internet and research, so one of the things that I would be good at doing is blogging.
Right.
Because I have to research to write articles to blog. It involves computers which is something I love. It involves the internet which is something I love and it involves research. And at one time, I was a paid blogger and I loved it.
Right, right.
So, you can take the skills that you are passionate about and create a business around that. Now some people get into MLM, multilevel marketing companies. If that's what they're passionate about then so be it, but I always say if you start with something that you already know and that you're passionate about, then you can grow from that and carry that on. Because if you start with something that you're not passionate about, when it comes a time where you face a hurdle or you can't really get past point A to get to point B, then you may want to give up and you don't want to start in something that you're going to eventually give up.
Now Kim, what experts do we have on our team to - because sometimes it's just hard doing it all alone but what experts do we have on our to help us build our company?
One of the best things you can do is determine what tasks go with things you can handle yourself and then determine what you can outsource. Those things that you can outsource would free up your time. So things such as a VA, finding a VA who can handle your transcription or your accounting, bookkeeping, someone who can handle your - be your office assistant. Now keep in mind, a VA is a virtual assistant which means that they are virtual, not in your home, and they would handle - as an office assistant, they could handle your calls, yes. You can set it up to where when people call a VSS number, it rings into them and they can answer your calls. They can handle your presentations, your correspondence, anything that's - I don't want to say mundane - but anything that's tedious and requires repetition, you can hand that off to someone, you can outsource that. You may want to outsource your audio/video editing or your web design, you may want to outsource. So if you are - let's say a florist and you a need a website created, you need someone to manage your calendar, you need someone to manage your accounting, bookkeeping, you may even want a video created. All these things can be outsourced to free you up to run your business.
That is true and you'll be amazed that - I mean if you go to gorules.com and elance.com and some of the other freelance sites that are available on the internet to negotiate cost and trying to find help to do some of the small tasks that other people are good at, it would allow you to focus on building your business at an alarming rate. Now what are some of the essential tasks that we should complete to set up an online business, Kim?
Some of the essential tasks that you should keep in mind when you're setting up an online business is that you should always start with a business plan, as I mentioned before, and you should always have a strategic implementation plan where you're going to take your business plan and say okay this is how I'm going to do it. So if, for instance, if you're a florist and you need to develop a marketing plan, you need to determine who you want your target audience to be and how you're going to reach them and then create steps to reach them. You should have business tools that you use to grow your business online such as Google Docs. Google Docs is an extraordinary creation by Google. It allows you to share documents that you're working on with someone, virtually. You can share Word-type documents, presentation Excels, I mean spreadsheets, just different types of documents. If you need a calendar managed by a virtual assistant, use something like timebridge.com. It's a really great resource that allows you to invite people or schedule meetings and it actually integrates with Google Calendar and it's also a free resource. Yes, I'm all about free, or low cost, for a lot of the resources that I use. Fuzemeeting.com, fuzemeeting is a webinar software program that actually allows you to share your desktop, share HD video, and HD videos are high quality, high definition videos. It allows you to record whatever you do on the webinar room so that you can actually share the recording of that webinar with others. Use social media websites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn to connect with your customers and to connect with business associates. I would say read, read, read. Read blogs such as mashable.com. I would say read socialmediaexaminer.com, entrepreneur.com. There are so many websites out there that have great information about running your business, establishing your business, starting up your business that have the information you need so you do not have to run around looking for it. It's right there and you can just learn from it to use it to set up your online business.
Now what is an affiliate program and what are the benefits of setting up a program to integrate it into what we are doing, building our business, Kim?
An affiliate program, to start off, is where you set up a way for those people who are going to be sharing information about your business to make money. It is a passive income for them so all you have to do is create emails, or Twitter messages, or you might want to create a graphic that they would be able to share on their social media websites or on their websites and say, "Hey, so and so is providing this service or this product. Click on this link and go buy it." And when someone clicks on the link it sends them to your website and once that customer buys something, your affiliate earns a percentage, or a specific dollar amount, for referring people and it is an easy way for business owners to grow their business. If you want to build a fanatical support system of affiliates, a really great way to do it is to offer affiliate training. Set up the program and then train your affiliates how to use the program, give them tips and tools on how to make money by using your affiliate program.
Joint ventures, what are JV opportunities? I have heard about this.
Now earlier, I said cross marketing and now we are talking about joint ventures. So, I look at cross marketing and joint venturing as two different things and let me explain why. Cross marketing is where I, as a business owner, will connect with you as a business owner and we will cross market, or we will market to each other's customer base, do effort to share our business information. For instance, I have a business client that I have known for years and she and I cross market to each other's customer base. If I have something going on, she will take my information and she will send it out to her customer base and say, "Hey, Kim has this going on. Go over and look at what she has going on and buy that product or service." That's cross marketing. Joint venturing is when I and my business associate choose to come together and provide a product or service to not only our customer base, but to everyone in general. So my business customer and I actually created a website called crossmarketingpartners.com that actually teaches people how to cross market and we hold teleconferences to give people the opportunity to cross market. So that is a product or service that we joint ventured on so that we can provide a product or service.
That is phenomenal because you just listed affiliate marketing, joint venturing, cross marketing as tools that we could use as a business owner to expand our online business. Now we have decided when we have this business that we want to monitor our efforts. What tools could you give us or lead us to help us monitor our efforts.
One of the thing you can use is quantcast.com. Quantcast actually allows you to check out your competition and your own business to see what the statistics are regarding the traffic, regarding the demographics for your website and your competitor's. The same thing is what compete.com - compete.com allows you to monitor your competition and compare your website or your efforts with your competition. Google.com4/alerts. Google alerts is a free service and the three that I have mentioned, quantcast.com, compete.com, and google.com4/alerts are all free. Those are really great resources that you can use to monitor your activity online. If you want to have someone actually research your business, to monitor how successful you are, to monitor what you need to do to develop your business, one of the resources I want to tell you about is sdir.gov. Sdir.gov is just basically a small business innovative research where they will research your business and you get a grant for them to research your business and see what type of technology or innovative business services you need to add to your business in order to make it successful. So those are just a few suggestions off the top of my head.
Oh, that is awesome. That's awesome. Now you, like I said, you do have a training platform that teach us how to integrate all these nice new tools into our business. Social networking, I want to briefly touch that before I move on. I have so many, when I say so at least 10 off the top of my head, different social media accounts from Ning to Facebook to Twitter to 48 pages and many more. How can I manage all 10 or integrate all 10 into just one page that I can look at in the morning time.
There are actually several online resources that allow you to connect with your multiple social media websites and they are called multi-platform software programs. You can check out amplify.com and basically this website allows you to set up connections to your Facebook, your Twitter, Ning, even a WordPress blog. You can come into your WordPress blog, you can connect to a number of social media websites and it allows you to connect to your Facebook fan pages. So once you set up all your different accounts then any information that you share via amplify.com, you can choose which of the different places you have connected to that you want this information to go to. If you turn a link to an article that you found, you can say, "Okay, I want it to go to this Twitter account but not this one. I want to go to this fan page on Facebook and let see where else. Oh! I want to send it to Google buzz." And you can pick and choose where you want to send it and they will automatically go there, you just send it and forget it. Another one is hootsuite.com. Those are the two big ones. My favorite is tweetdeck.com.
I got 40 seconds. Man, time flies when you're having fun. You tell everybody where to contact you. We are going to turn the interview into a transcript or quickly, Kim, is you can tell us how to contact you.
You can contact me via my website promembershipservices.com or your passionate business.com.
Hey! I am sorry we ran out of time. I mean, it was so much information and I know Kim could've continued and like, at the beginning, I said she's a wealth of information. Don't forget the National Christian Writers Conference, 14th August in Washington, DC. We thank you for listening and enjoying the show. Kim, we'll talk to you later.
Okay, thank you for having me.
No problem. Bye bye.