“If your ships doesn’t come in, swim out to meet it” – Johnathan Winters One thing potential entrepreneurs continuously ask me is what should I be doing to get started? Should I be researching business ideas? Should I be writing a business plan? Where can I go to get inspiration on a business? Where I would start is by asking yourself three questions. Now, If I were to ask you these three questions in person, I would ONLY share them with you if you promised to take action. Because if there was any ONE thing that I see lacking with most people who think they want to become wealthy and those who know that they are going to be and that is ACTION. Here are the three questions you MUST ask yourself in order to make independence your own reality. 1. Are you serious about REALLY living your dream? 2. Are you on the right track to get where you want to be? 3. What can you do today get yourself closer to your dream? That’s it? You mean that’s all you’re going to give me Benny? C’mon – there has got to be some super-secret recipe that you can tell me that will start me on my way, some ONE thing that will lead me on my path to millions? One thing that I’ve also learned is that my path is completely different than anybody else’s. I tried to do things exactly as others before had done, and it just doesn’t work. Now, there are some similar things that have been done before and will surely work. But what you want and what somebody else wants are two completely different things. That is why you won’t hear me telling you how to do things. I learned some time ago that this thing called your “Why” is what gets you going NOT the “How”. There are a ton of books by these so-called gurus that will tell you how to trade stocks, or show you how they made millions by doing an infomercial. I love learning how they did it, but it might not necessarily be for me. Alright, I hear you out there. Please show me something! Do you really want to make a million dollars or more? Do you want to know a business that will, if you are serious, take time to educate yourself and make smart business moves, you can become successful? Okay, it’s Real Estate. It is time-tested and proven and I have several friends who are worth millions because of real estate. Tell me , what’s your HONEST reaction? Was it something like “No kidding, I’m doing that already.” , “Oh, I could never fix toilets at 2:00 AM”, “Should I flip houses, buy and rent?” or was is “Real Estate – nah too hard.” The truth is real estate has created thousands of millonaires especially over the last 30 years, and personally, I’ve dipped my toe in it, but it doesn’t excite me. So for many people who are interested in real estate as their passion – this works! For me, I’ll probably buy some more real estate, because I know how to, but it won’t be my primary focus. How about you? Now go back to the three questions above, it is so easy to glance over the questions, but here’s how you do it. Read question number one. “Are you serious about REALLY living your dream?” What is your life like today? Comfortable? Easy? Predictable? For many, the corporate culture creates an environment of “Just below acceptable”. You do a job that isn’t too hard. You make enough to enjoy life. You have a house, a car or two, take a vacation or two a year and that works. After all, everybody else is in the same boat right? So if you ask the question, are you serious? Many people will just say – NO. Because their lives are fine right now. Because of that fact, you can’t move forward – you’re not ready to go on. So while question number one may seem simplistic, it is the hardest question for MOST people to HONESTLY answer yes to. Three simple questions. Three honest answers. That’s all it takes to get you started.
The prices of domain name registration and web hosting have dropped to the point that it’s possible to own multiple websites without going broke. If you plan to operate multiple websites, here is some information on the different options available to you. The first thing to consider when setting up multiple websites is whether or not to host them all with the same web hosting company. Many web hosts offer packages that let you set up multiple sites on a single account and almost all will let you set up multiple accounts, one for each site. If you are happy with the hosting company you’re using for your existing website(s), one advantage of using them for another site is the fact that you know they offer good service and support. They might also offer discounts for multiple sites, so your costs might be lower if you stay with them again. On the other hand, if you choose a different host you’ll be able to compare the quality of another company with whomever you’re currently using. If you ever run into problems with them, you’ll have an alternative. It’s wise not to “put all your eggs in one basket” as the saying goes. Another advantage of using a different host is that you’ll get a different IP address for each of your sites. If your sites are related to one another and you want to link them together, having different IP addresses can sometimes help your site rank higher in the search engines. Links from other sites are one of the most important factors in getting your site ranked highly. If those links come from sites on the same IP address, it is a signal to the search engines that they are quite likely all owned by the same person, and they may discount the value of those links. If you do choose to host all your sites with one company, there are essentially 3 choices – separate accounts for each site, a reseller account where they are all hosted or a dedicated server, again where they are all hosted. Separate accounts are self-explanatory, so let’s look at reseller accounts. As a reseller, you are basically acting as an agent for the hosting company – a middleman between them and the end user. The idea is that you can set up your own company offering web hosting that is ultimately hosted by the company. You don’t have to resell this hosting however – you can use the hosting services for your own websites, essentially “reselling” the hosting to yourself. A reseller account is nice because all your websites are “under one roof” and you have a single point of contact for any technical problems. Hosting on a dedicated server gives you complete control of the computer that is the web server. You can install any software you want, any operating system you want and you can allocate resources like memory and hard disk space however you want to divide it up between your sites. The disadvantage of a dedicated server is that you are responsible for maintaining the server and sometimes even for the technical side of things. If you aren’t familiar with the technical side of running a web server, you may need to choose a managed dedicated server, where the hosting company looks after these issues. Dedicated server are, of course, more expensive than the other options, so unless your websites are well established, with a lot of traffic, they may not fit within your budget.