Erich Stauffer

Tag: Business Consulting

  • Business On the Side

    The days of working as a business analyst by day and a business consultant by night are starting to wear on me.

    For those of you who don’t know, I run Watershawl Technology Consulting and do Internet Marketing for Cost Publishing “on the side” while maintaining a day job as a business analyst. I’m Microsoft Certified and have worked as a network technician in the past so I tend to understand both sides of the fence. I realize the balance that needs to exist between business needs and technical specs. This makes me a good business consultant.

    The problem is time, which is the same problem we all have. I know I am entrepreneurial by nature and enjoy solving problems, but I can’t be in two places at once and this causes stress. Its stress I put myself in, but like I said, its starting to wear on me. I’ve been working “on the side” since I graduated from college in 2005. Even before graduating I worked full time while in school. I know what it means to balance work and life goals. Every once in a while, though, you have to ask yourself, “Why?”

    Why do I do what I do?

    I enjoy watching my clients businesses grow while my business grows at the same time and I’ve learned to relish that growth, but what am I growing into? What is Watershawl? I dream of the day this company is able to employ myself and others for the good of the community, creating and updating new and exciting solutions for customers online and off. I would love for my children to have someplace to work or learn new skills as they grow into their careers. I would love to be able to work from home. Those are all the goals I am working towards. That is who Watershawl is. What can Watershawl do for you?

    August 2011 Update: My First Day of Work After Quitting My Day Job

  • 12 Ways to Make Money Online

    How to Make Money Online

    Making money online is not always easy.  It’s work just like any job, but it seems to have this allure to it.  I think that allure has a lot to do with a feeling of being your own boss or getting as much out of something as you put into it.  At your job, no matter how hard you work, the pay is the same (in the short term), but when you work for yourself, the dynamics are different.  Making money online is essentially like running your own business.  Where “people have dreamed about owning their own business and have not followed through because of the investment in resources,” says Jim Griffith, head of eBay University, “the Internet allows people to at least try without making a large initial investment.”

    Here are 12 ways you can make money online

    1. Online Ads – Pay-per-click (PPC) links are ads that display on your site, served up by advertising programs like Google AdSense or Chitika are a great way to get started, but don’t expect to get rich off of it unless your site has a lot of traffic. The good thing is you get paid regardless of if the advertiser makes a sale, but the bad thing is they don’t usually pay that much for the click. You don’t have to pick out what ads will display. Google will detect the type of content on your site and show relevant ads automatically. Chitika works a little differently. It goes by what a visitor searched for in order to find your site, not your site’s actual content. Although they may be one in the same, they don’t have to be. Also, Chitika ads will not show up if you browse to your site, but Google Adsense ads will. You’ll want to have good, original content either way to attract visitors and the best ads. Google saves its best paying ads for sites that rank higher and have better traffic. Google also requires that you have a privacy policy on any website displaying their ads or you could risk losing your account. If you don’t know what to write, you can use our privacy policy as an example.

    google-adsenseOnce you have an account setup, you can start to add the code to your blog, which serves up the ads.  When people click on the ads, you make money.  The more content you write and the more promotion you do, the more people will come to your web site, which increases the chance that someone will want to click on an ad.

    2. Affiliate Programs – Pay-per-purchase (PPP) links are affiliate ads that display links to products or programs where you get a percentage of the sale whenever a purchase is made. Percentages vary based on the product, manufacturer, and affiliate program. Amazon Associates, an affiliate program from Amazon, goes from 4% to 15%, but it’s a tiered scale that requires making sales at lower percentages before you can make sales at higher percentages and it resets every month. LinkShare, another affiliate advertising program, lets you choose what advertisers to work with. Once you find one you would like to promote, you can apply to add them as a product. If you run more than one site you’ll want to set up channels for each site under your account settings. Each channel will have to apply for it’s own advertiser programs even if you’ve already been approved on another channel. Commission Junction and Google Affiliate Network are two other good examples of affiliate advertising networks like LinkShare. While clicks and purchases can be less for PPP links, the payouts can be higher per purchase, making this a good next step for those who want more than just PPC links on their website.

    3. Direct Sales – If you’ve got a product to sell, whether it is something you’ve made or something you have bought to resell, if you are selling it on your site you are doing direct sales. You may also have to fulfill your own orders unless you work with an order fulfillment service. The advantage of direct sales are that you get to control how much mark-up you add to the product, but the down-side is that you are on your own for dealing directly with payment processing systems, shipping, returns, and other logistical issues that may come up. If you’ve got a good product to sell, and you’re just starting out, you might want to partner with an already established distribution company like Amazon.com, ClickBank, CafePress, Zazzle, or Threadless, depending on your product. This is a form of commissioned sales, which is the next way to make money online.

    4. Commission Sales – If you’ve created a product to sell, but don’t want the hassle of selling directly, commissioned sales is the way to go. For a share of the revenue, the distributer will handle the store front, the payment processing, and returns. All you have to do is ship the item and cash the checks. Some distributers will even store your items for you or make them on-demand. For example, ClickBank will store your ebook for distribution and CafePress, Zazzle, and Spreadshirt prints your items on t-shirts or other merchandise at the point of order. This is kind of like micro-manufacturing or on-demand manufacturing, but essentially it means very low inventory costs, which allows them to charge a decent amount and still give you a cut. You create the idea, they sell it, and give you a commission. If you want more of a commission over time, you can open your own web site, which would be a step back into direct sales. Examples of distributors include Amazon.com, iStockPhoto.com, ClickBank, Zazzle, Spreadshirt, and CafePress.

    5. Online Ad Sales – Once your site has enough traffic, you can start to sell ads directly to advertisers. This is a form of direct sales, but the product is ad space on your site that you would normally give to Google Adsense, Chitika, or an affiliate link. The upside is that you can potentially charge more for the space than Google or Chitika would give you for the same space, but you risk not making any direct ad sales at all. But if you have a large enough following and can prove visitor counts, then you may have a good chance in selling ad space to an advertiser interested in marketing to your readers. Again, the key is good content. That’s how it all starts.

    6. Domain Flipping – For those who are great at finding niches, can fill a site with content easily, know how to promote a site, and not get too emotionally attached, domain flipping is for you. It has great potential to make a lot of money and can be quite profitable if you know what you are doing. There are sites out there like Flippa or Sedo which specialize in flipping domains and there are are many tutorials out there to teach you the best way to do so. Selling a domain is equivalent to cashing out of a business you’ve started and can be a good feeling, but it’s not for everyone. Sometimes you’ll wish you never sold and then there are just those who like the slow and steady, latent income over the hussle of constantly buying and selling domains.

    7. Convert Your Content – Turn your blog into a book or your site into a magazine or your Twitter account into a television show – yes, all these things have been done before.

    While the last seven examples have been about your own content or site, the next five focus on other things you can do online to make money:

    8. Online Auctions – Sell things on Ebay or Craigslist. This can only last so long unless you go out and get more to sell, however if you get good at it, you can help other people sell things online as well, charging up to 33% commission on the sale.

    9. Online Surveys – If you know where to find them, there are plenty of sites out there that will pay you to fill out surveys. You may have to fit into a certain type of income or age group, but eventually you will find one that you can fill out for cash or gifts. This certainly won’t replace your day job, but some enjoy doing it on the side for fun money.

    10. Micro-Jobs – This is another low-on-the-totem pole idea that is worth mentioning, but will not make you rich or allow you to quit your day job. Sites like Amazon’s Mechanical Turk will allow you to bid for jobs that pay very small amounts. The upside here is speed. If you can do the jobs in a short amount of time, then your rate of pay can increase. It’s hit or miss on getting accepted to do the job though so you take a risk on how you spend your time. Try and do an opportunity cost analysis first to see if there are better ways to spend your time to make money – online or off.

    11. Freelancing – There are lots of freelancing sites out there to find work to do, but one of the most popular sites is Elance. They all pretty much work the same, though. People who need to get stuff done can post their wants or needs up on the site and people like you can then bid on doing the work. If your bid is accepted, you do the work, get paid, and the connecting site takes a commission off the sale. If you do enough, you might be able to shake the commissioned sales model and go direct, essentially starting your own business, which is the next example of how to make money online.

    12. Start Your Own Business – This is part of the American dream and very easy to do online. You can even get incorporated online, depending on your state. Whether your business idea is to become a consultant, sell a product, offer a service, or just blog for profit, starting your own business has tax benefits as well as making you feel a sense of pride. I’d recommend it to anybody who wants to experience the free enterprise system to the fullest.

    Read Forbe’s Eight Ways to Make Money Online for more tips on how to make money online.

  • A Day in the Life of a Business Analyst

    Boiling a business analyst’s primary functions down, you get the following:

    • conceptualize, visualize
    • troubleshoot, problem solve
    • research, mine data and reports
    • identify trends and patterns, predict
    • identify similarities and differences
    • interact with people, communicate
    • innovate and discover solutions to problems
    • create proof of concepts, write business cases
    • document procedures and implement solutions

    Here is a day in the life of a business analyst using some of these primary functions:

    Visualization, conceptualization, and problem solving approaches over a time have matured and are quite structured and repetitive (if done well). However, no matter how structured and repetitive your documents and processes are, the people you work with and report to will always be there to throw obstacles in your way – so expect it. The business analysts role is to confront these challenges everyday at work and constantly innovative to come up with a workable solution.

    A typical business analyst’s day usually contains complexity and challenges, which require an individual to conceptualize, design, research, and report on a variety of products and/or procedures. You may be presented with a question but no data, or data without a clearly defined question. An analysis cannot really start until both the question and the data set is clearly defined. I call this QDAR, which stands for:

    • Question
    • Data set
    • Analysis
    • Report / Revision

    This is similar to STAIR, which is:

    • State the problem
    • Define the Tools
    • Algorithm (procedure)
    • Implement
    • Revise

    Business analysts have to interact with people who have the data but are not ready to part with it for some reason. Maybe they are afraid of what you are going to do with it (such as use it against them) or maybe they feel like you are replacing them (“Hey, I’m the one who owns that data!”), so some social skills definitely come in handy.

    A lot of the time the work you are doing is up in your head. This means you may often look like you don’t have work to do. This is unavoidable, but some things you can do is to make active use of a white board and/or sheets of scrap paper on your desk as a way to look busy, but truly to make sure your ideas get down on paper.

    Some times you’ll lead projects even if you are not a project manager. This means you’ll have to collaboratively strategize, generate acceptability, and ownership. Getting all these people on the same platform and presenting the idea through their perspective while keeping everybody’s attention is one of the hardest parts and primarily what your function will be along with organization of the project.

    Before beginning any big endeavor you’ll want to create a sort of proof of concept (PoC) document. Don’t get too caught up in formalities here. This report is for you as much as your boss to help guide you through the project or task. You’re more than likely going to be working on more than one thing at a time and you’ll likely get pulled away long enough to forget your ideas about the initiative so get th plan down on paper while you can. Use the STAIR acronym if it helps. If there are Business Requirement Specifications (BRS), include those in the document too.

    Once the plan is in place, revised, and approved, it’s time to start implementing. Execution may be the easiest part, but sometimes is the hardest to do because its not analyzing, it’s work. If you’re making a system change, be sure and use change control processes, and when you are done, test, and review. Finally, report on the initiative, get feedback, and move on to your next assignment. You’ve just had a productive day!

  • Blogging for Profit

    How to Find a Profitable Micro-Niche to Market Online

    This is an article based on a similar article I wrote about traffic conversion in 2009. Using proven, repeatable techniques there is little risk and great rewards involved in blogging for profit. Peter Drucker in Innovation and Entrepreneurship: Practice and Principles writes, “Entrepreneurship, it is commonly believed, is enourmously risky…[but]…entrepreneurship should be the least risky rather than the most risky course,” because of how entrepreneurship, “by definition, shifts resources from areas of low productivity and yield to areas of higher productivity and yield.” Much work has already been done for us in the form of innovating processes and software tools, which eliminates risk. There are two key phases to the process:

    1. Research and Analysis – Identify a micro-niche inside a penetrable market that has profitable products that people are already selling.
    2. Marketing and Testing – Promote the products and test the results. If the traffic and/or conversions do not meet thresholds in a given time, start over.

    The rate of success with this method is anywhere between 1 in 6 to 1 in 10 and marketing and testing can take anywhere from 1 to 30 days. Success is defined as more money coming in than is going out each month and that includes all opportunity costs (time that could have been spent making money in other activities). Tracking is critical not only with the data of the results, but with the finances and time spent.

    Rules and Metrics of Phase 1 – Research and Analysis

    According to The Thirty Day Challenge (now called simply, “The Challenge“) micro-niches are identified as the #1 keyword receiving at least 80 clicks per day and websites containing that keyword being less than 30,000 globally. At least 3 keywords other keywords within the micro-niche with similar criteria must also be identified, if not, start over.

    The top 10 search results for the top 4 keywords has to be penetrable within the time allowed. Metrics to consider are:

    Test 1: If the competition has a young domain age, a low number of back-links, and does not exist in any of these directories, then the market is penetrable. If the opposite is true, stop and start over.

    Test 2: Check to see that related products are both available to be sold and are being sold by others. If either is not true, stop and start over.

    If both of those tests pass, then make sure the products are giving a referral amount that you deem acceptable. If not, stop and start over. You now have products in a penetrable micro-niche that are profitable to sell. Move on to Phase II – Marketing and Testing.

    Phase II – Marketing and Testing

    Begin by setting up a place to place your products. This is where your marketing efforts will point back to. It can be a Squidoo page, a Blogspot Blog, or WordPress running on your own domain.  If you are using Blogspot or WordPress, install Google Analytics to track traffic. If using Squidoo, there are tracking mechanisms built into the site. Once you have a place to put your products, begin writing copy (content) for the site. You will need to write the following:

    • ‘About’ and ‘Privacy’ pages – use keywords and talk about the product. A privacy policy is required by many advertisers and affiliate programs including Google Adsense.
    • Ad copy for the products – if using Market Samurai, there are built-in features for helping with this, but you can do it manually too.
    • Create posts (or pages) about the keyword subject matter within the micro-niche.
    • Next, begin to create backlinks to your site by placing links to the domain, the blog posts, and the the product pages on social bookmarking, social media, and in blog comments in your related market. Be sure to add links from .edu and .gov domains. You can search Google specifically for blogs on those domains manually, but you can do this semi-automatically with Market Samurai too.

    Track the incoming page hits on Google Analytics. Testing for viability can begin only after your product’s page is receiving at least 200 hits per day. If you are not getting 200 hits per day, then try these things first:

    • Increase the number of blog posts on and off the site using other services like hubpages and squidoo – then promote all of the new posts again.
    • Make sure you are promoting on at least 30 different sites for each post – you can use services like ping.fm or trafficbug to assist with this task.
    • Pay to have your site listed in the Yahoo! Directory.
    • Pay for Google Adwords or Bing (Microsoft) AdCenter.
    • Add pictures with descriptive text to get hits from search engine’s image searches like Google Image search.
    • Add video to Youtube with links and comment on other videos in your micro-niche.
    • Make sure you are posting to Twitter and Facebook regularly and engaging in conversation, not just promoting.

    If after 30 days or at your own set threshold, you are still not receiving 200 hits or more per day, your product is not viable. Quit and start over. You have just found one of your 6 to 10 failures. If you do have over 200 hits per day, but are not getting conversions, first try changing out your ad copy, images of the products, and/or placement of the two on the page. Refer to Dan Kennedy’s sales letter technique. If after changing all three of these variables and still your revenue is below your expenses, then start over. If not, you have a profitable business. Consider selling it for ten times it’s worth and starting over using Flippa.

  • Sign up for LinkShare

    Signing up as a LinkShare publisher is quick, easy, and free! Just complete the info on this page and you’ll be able to start making money online in no time.

    What is a LinkShare publisher?

    Publisher is LinkShare’s term for an affiliate who is promoting other company’s (Advertisers) products and services in exchange for a commission.

    Who’s eligible to become a publisher?

    Anyone with a Web site, blog, or Internet presence can join LinkShare. You will also need to provide a valid mailing address (to receive payments) and tax information.

    Does it cost anything to apply?

    No, it is completely free to become a LinkShare publisher and there is no cost in joining any LinkShare advertiser program.

    How do I generate revenue?

    As a publisher, you will have access to links and banners that you can place on your Web site, blog, or in Emails. These links will drive traffic to advertisers’ Web sites. Advertisers will pay a commission for each purchase or qualifying action you generate for them. LinkShare acts as the trusted third-party that brings together both advertisers and publishers.

    What makes LinkShare different from other affiliate networks?

    There are many affiliate marketing networks to choose from and you want to spend your valuable time on the network that will generate the most commissions for your business. LinkShare maintains one of the most successful affiliate marketing networks in the world. Leading publishers and advertisers from almost every vertical have chosen LinkShare to help increase their online revenue. We stand apart from other affiliate marketing networks in terms of experience, technology, and network quality and integrity.

    LinkShare has signed on hundreds of advertisers including some of the most prestigious and well-known brands in the world such as Wal-Mart, Macy’s, Clinique, OfficeDepot, and Apple iTunes.

    LinkShare recently introduced a completely redesigned user interface for its Publishers: the LinkShare Publisher Dashboard, which is a simple, elegant design allows you to easily find and join advertiser programs and then locate the best links for your Web site. Plus, you can see how your commissions are stacking up at any given moment in time with our easy-to-understand and advanced reporting capabilities.

    LinkShare offers many innovative link technologies that help you keep your advertiser links fresh and up-to-date including Merchandiser Product Feeds; Dynamic Rich Media (DRM); Flex Links for video, widgets, and Flash content; and Mobile Links for those publishers on the cutting edge of the next e-commerce trend.

  • The Confidence-Success Loop

    confidence-success-loopThe “con” in con-man is short for confidence.  Con-men are successful because they are confident.  They “fake it until they make it” one might say.  This same confidence can and is used by successful law-abiding citizens every day.  What I am suggesting is that there is such a strong connection between success and confidence that once one enters the loop through solid work, the loop begins to feed itself.

    Lets talk for a moment about what I have identified as the entry point, “solid work”.  This is the preparation, the due diligence, the hard data gathering that backs up the confidence.  Yes, you can “fake it until you make it”, but those who make it eventually create solid work to back up their confidence.  Without it, the faking can only last so long.

    Now, if you’ve heard or read Jim Collins talk about “the flywheel concept”, you can see how this kind of applies here.  In the beginning, it takes more solid work to get your confidence up, but once you have it, the past successes will make you more confident.  Confidence will then lead to more success, but if you don’t keep backing it up with solid work, the flywheel will eventually stop spinning.

    Danielle Franklin of ForexExplore.com says that “Once you earn new experience, the confidence increases,” and I would have to agree. Whether you are in stocks, sales, teaching, politics, or management, managing your confidence-success loop is critical.