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How to Build an Online Business: It’s All About the Mindset

My Story of How to Build an Online Business

When I set out to learn how to build an online business during the winter and spring of 2006 I had no idea what I was in for with this new venture. I just knew that I needed to leave my former life behind and begin something new. I had worked for twenty years as a classroom teacher, teaching grades Kindergarten through high school at four different school. And as if that weren’t enough, I had simultaneously worked in my own business as a real estate broker and certified residential appraiser. At that point I was exhausted and ready for a change. What had started out as an enjoyable career as a teacher supplemented by my work in real estate became almost intolerable after I got older and went through a serious work injury and multiple bouts with cancer.

It was during the spring of 2005 that I began to think about doing something new and changing my life in a major way. But I had no idea where to turn or what was possible for me at this stage of my life. I was about to celebrate my fiftieth birthday and yearned for something new.

I began to read books on business and entrepreneurship in search of some answers. Everyone in my life at that time knew that I was on a quest for answers and solutions to my dilemma. I have to say that people were supportive overall, yet no one seemed to have the answers I was looking for and so wanted to find. Then one night at a friend’s birthday party I was introduced to a couple by mutual friends. They had left the corporate world behind about a year earlier and were enjoying a life I could only imagine. The wife, Alicia had chosen to learn about day trading in the stock market while Patrick, the husband had gone into real estate. I was fascinated by what they had been able to achieve in such a short time and we became fast friends.

Each Sunday they got up at the crack of dawn and went hiking in our local mountains and invited me to join build an Online Business them. It was during these early morning hikes that I first had a glimpse of another life that I could have if I was willing to take full responsibility and make things happen for myself. I was more than willing to humble myself during this process and time of change. We discussed everything, from relationships and religion to business and education and everything in between. I attended their new age church with them a few times and also went to seminars and workshops they recommended. By April of 2005 my thinking had shifted and I was taking in information in a much different way that I ever had in the past.

It was during this month that a friend invited me to a real estate expo at the Los Angeles Convention Center. It was a weekend event but I told him that I only had time to attend on Saturday. We made the forty mile drive downtown together, barely talking while sitting in heavy traffic. When we finally arrived we agreed to go separate ways until lunch, allowing us to each explore the sessions that were of interest to us individually. At lunch we would share our experiences and regroup for the afternoon.

It was fun to be away from my usual Saturday activities of real estate and classroom preparation. I had seldom taken a day for myself over the years so I welcomed this opportunity to explore new opportunities. There were sessions on buying foreclosed properties and those in probate, as well as ones on investing in multi-family buildings. Then I heard someone speaking about something I couldn’t quite understand and I went into that session and took a seat in the back row.

The man speaking was Raymond Aaron, the person who would become my very first mentor. He was explaining how much you could achieve when you led a “mentored life” and it all made perfect sense to me. An hour later I had signed up for his program and had a huge box of manuals and cassette tapes to show for it.

When my friend and I met for lunch I had a spring in my step and a twinkle in my eye, or so he later told me. I knew that most anything was possible and that I was going to start finding the answers I so longed for very quickly.

Within a couple of months of working with Raymond and following his program I had discovered the online world of business. And when I wanted to learn how to build an online business everything I needed unfolded with grace and ease. I was introduced to new business models and ways of thinking that were exciting yet challenging. I began to blog regularly and this was my first foray into the world of writing and authorship. I embraced this challenge wholeheartedly and my writing slowly began to improve.

So this is the story of how to build an online business if you are currently in a world that seems far away from any type of entrepreneurship. Once I allowed myself to live a mentored life the people I needed magically appeared. They say that when the student is ready the teacher appears and this was my experience.

Now I don’t want you to think this was easy. There were so many days when I told myself that anyone in their right mind would have given up long before that day. But I was determined to learn more each day and to not give up. I discovered that the online marketing world is filled with something motivation speaker and entrepreneur Brian Tracy refers to as “learnable skills”. And once I knew and believed that I did not have to come into this with God given talents and abilities I was then willing to learn whatever I needed to in order to achieve success.

Beginning with blogging and affiliate marketing I soon expanded to local business marketing and information product creation. This was followed by adding the business models of mentoring and consulting as well as authorship and publishing. Niche and membership sites came next and soon I had many plates spinning joyfully in the air. Learning how to build an online business was even more exciting and rewarding than I had imagined!

If you are longing to learn how to build an online business for yourself, be willing to take the time to explore just what is possible for you in your current situation. This is an amazing way to earn an excellent living and you can run your business as an online entrepreneur from anywhere in the world. I regularly work on my business from the beach in Santa Barbara or a coffee shop with wifi, and have also worked from a summer cottage at the lake in Finland, a hotel lobby in Bangkok, and an internet cafe in Amsterdam. None of this would be possible with any other job or career I can think of, and it’s so much fun. Know that you can achieve all of your entrepreneurial goals and take the steps to put the life you wish to live into motion.

I’m Connie Ragen Green and I work with new online entrepreneurs to help them get into profit as quickly as possible. Download your Online Entrepreneur Blueprint and get started right away.

Blogging for Your Business – It’s Worth It!

Blogging for Your Business

The purpose of this writing is to encourage you to blog for your business on a regular basis. This has been the most difficult challenge for my students, even though they continue to see my success because of my blogs. It is my hope to somehow inspire and motivate you to get started, continue, or get back to blogging for your business today.

I started my first blog while still working as a classroom teacher. I had fifth grade that year and we decided to blog about the science projects we were reading about. The budget had once again been cut, and science took the biggest hit at my school. So instead of having any hands on experiments or a science fair, I thought at least we could start a blog and write about what we were learning.

The students embraced the technology without question and we launched our science blog the day we decided to move forward. We had three working computers in our classroom so three people could always be working on something for the new site simultaneously. This was 2003, so it was primitive in terms of today’s capabilities, but I was willing to do anything to keep my students actively engaged in the learning process. Little did I know that blogging would become the foundation and backbone of my business just a few years later.

These days I maintain two main blogs. One is found under my name – Connie Ragen Green – and the other is at Huge Profits Tiny List. I won’t go into the details and story behind my second blog, but suffice it to say I have very good reasons for posting to both of them.

Blogging for my business allowed me to find my voice. I wasn’t a writer when I came online, but thanks to the many blog posts I wrote during that first year I became one. These days I write five hundred to a thousand word a day, every day, and when I am writing a book or a short report that is likely to double or even triple. But I won’t ever forget what it was like during the early days of staring at my computer screen and not knowing what to write about.

That’s when I began learning about keywords and SEO )search engine optimization). I found out that when people searched for specific topics the results were all tied to the words used. In the beginning I helped people to write, publish, and market eBooks. Finding our which words your target audience was searching for helped you to write eBooks that could be found and purchased by the people who wanted and needed the information.

My blogs provide me with a platform to tell the world what I think. Getting your message out to the world is crucial, and you don’t want to leave it to the temporary world of social media posts to do that. Blog posts are permanent and allow you to be in control of your content. You are a publisher at the click of a button and can reach a million people around the world.

I also discuss and share details and information about my products and courses on my blogs. I consider these posts to be “advertorials” in which you combine your information with the sales details in the style of an editorial or objective journalistic article. Instead of paying for advertisements to your products, the only cost here is your time. And what you write in your post is there forever, as opposed to only as long as you are paying to display it.

SEO, a platform for your message, and the advertorial approach to selling your products are just a few of the benefits of blogging for your business. The writing will get easier over time. Your site will get more popular with the search engines over time. You’ll learn how to become a skilled copywriter over time. Be willing to put in the time and your work as an online entrepreneur will soar.

I’m Connie Ragen Green, online marketing strategist, bestselling author, and international speaker on the topics of entrepreneurship and inner game mind shifts. Let’s connect to see how I may best serve you in the near future.

How to Eliminate Procrastination (It’s Not What You Might Think)

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Over the past decade I’ve written much about how to eliminate procrastination. Though my initial feelings and beliefs around this topic have not changed, I do see it in a slightly different light after working with so many entrepreneurs who struggle to take consistent action in their businesses. At first it was difficult for me to understand why intelligent people who have the desire to succeed would not take action on the tasks and activities that would get them closer to their destination. But these days I approach this issue differently.

One trait seems to jump out at me when I think of each of these people and their businesses and that is perfectionism. I’m a recovering perfectionist myself, so I recognize it more quickly than other online mentors or marketing strategists might in their clients. Perfectionism gnaws at your inner psyche like a dog devouring a bone. To learn how to eliminate procrastination, begin by learning how to eliminate perfectionism.

So allow me to explain how I make the connection between perfectionism and procrastination. The human mind can be tricky when it comes to working with you or against you at times. Just say you are beginning a new task that is foreign and takes you outside of your comfort zone. This describes what I went through when I came online in 2006 and wanted to become a writer. When I would sit down to write I thought about all of the reasons the writing would not turn out as well as I expected of myself. I wanted it to shine, to tell a story, to touch people, to make a point, to teach, to explain, and ultimately to sell my products and courses. In short, I wanted and expected my writing to be perfect.

Of course, this would not and could not be the outcome when I was so new to the writing process. It took months of daily focus and concentration for me to trick my mind into actually allowing me to write, instead of coming up with yet another excuse for procrastinating. When I finally did write a blog post or an article, I once again had to overcome my perfectionism in order to hit “publish” and share my content with the world.

I told myself that the writing would improve over time if I would just stick to it and write every day. I told myself no one would find it online and think less of me because of the quality. I told myself that others were far superior with their writing because they had been doing it longer than I had. All of these thing were true and helped ease the process of turning myself into a published author.

I promised to increase my vocabulary through reading. I promised to write every single day for one hour. I promised to share my writing with the world. I have kept all of these promises and the result is that I am now a bestselling author of more than a dozen books.

So, what are the steps on how to eliminate procrastination? First, eliminate perfectionism. Next, take action on whatever you are procrastinating about. And finally, promise yourself that you will catch procrastination early so that it does not interfere with your dreams and goals.

I’m Connie Ragen Green, bestselling author, international speaker, and online marketing strategist. Connect with me to see how we may work together in the future.

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