Article by Charlie Wright
If you’d asked me 10 years ago, “Do you have a blog?”, I’d have been shocked at the question.
I’d have thought you meant I had a problem flushing my toilet, or something.
These days, we all know what a blog is. It’s a personal diary you put on line, with links and downloads that anyone can access. Already online there are porn blogs, political blogs and music blogs.
Each one has a big personality… a regular theme…. and an individual attitude towards life.
The idea is that you keep going back every day to see what the latest is. Over time, you become loyal to the blog. Even addicted to it.
In a way, it’s home publishing…. crossed with e-publishing… crossed with internet marketing…
So I reckon there’s GOT to be big money in there somewhere.
Remember I was telling you about that article on the BBC website about how critical bloggers are forcing companies to improve their services? Well, read the story at the bottom of the article. It’s about a guy who used a blog to market wine.
He was very successful too. Check it out here
Quick guide to starting a blog
You can have a go at starting your own blog whenever you like. All you do is go to a blog creation site, for example, www.blogger.com. This has everything you need to get going.
Then follow the simple directions. Make sure your chosen template has a “links” section. Post some writing at least once every day. They don’t have to be long and you don’t have to be Bill Shakespeare.
Just get up in the morning and spend half an hour getting it out of your system.
Works for me (as you’ll see in a moment).
Write your blog for a few months and get the feel of it. After a while you’ll notice that you prefer certain themes and ideas. When you come up with something really niche and specific, run with it.
Who knows, you could write yourself into a winning formula and have thousands of readers every day. Now imagine coming up with a good product to sell them…
See? It’s got legs, I tell you!
While you practise writing, I’m going to keep looking for concrete ways this can make some dosh from this blogging lark.
More feedback on the J. Piper Group
After my e-letter last week, I got a couple of emails thanking me for the warning about JPG. It seems that a few of you have come across it but also found problems researching this outfit in the internet.
Apparently, they claim to have been advertising in the exchange and mart for 15 years… but surely I’d have come across them before?
It does seem to be, at best, a shady proposition. At worst, a scam.
Apart from the ‘too good to be true’ product, it’s also a multi-level-marketing scheme where want you to stump up £2K, so I’d definitely keep a wide birth. But if any of you know any different, then let us all know and put it on the forum.
Where’s everyone’s Entrepreneurial spirit?
So there I was on Thursday afternoon, writing stuff for my website, and listening to The Beach Boy’s 1971 ‘Surf’s Up’ record. Outside the sun was blazing hot – the first scorcher or the summer.
And what was I doing? I was thinking about going to buy a vacuum cleaner.
Sod that, I thought. So instead, I decided to take the afternoon off and sit in London Fields on my own. See, unfortunately, most of my friends have to be somewhere during the day. Something called a ‘regular job’.
I dunno… it doesn’t seem to be a regular thing in the East End of London, anyway. There were tonnes of people out, lolling about, having fun. Made me wonder what’s gone wrong with this country.
Weren’t they supposed to be at work? Or were they unemployed? Surely they weren’t all home business entrepreneurs with the same idea as me?
Perhaps the whole country is leaving its day job… but then where will that leave the likes of you and me?
Anyway, with my head full of questions, I sat on my own in the park and tried to listen to my iPod on. And after a while I got thirsty. But of course, this is Britain, so there was nobody to sell me a cold water / beer / soft drink / ice cream.
Strange… a whole park full of people on a blisteringly hot spring day… and no ice cream man, no woman carrying an ice-bag full of Coke.
Nothing.
Where’s everyone’s entrepreneurial spirit?
I’d have paid DOUBLE for an ice cold drink, I swear. But with nobody to help me, I had to leave the park and walk 10 minutes to the Costcutter instead.
Not long ago I was on holiday in Vietnam where people would flock to you with refreshments. Sure, it can get a bit tiresome when people are constantly trying to get you to buy things… but in a country where people have to compete hard to make independent money for themselves, it’s understandable.
Yet are we all so well off in the UK that nobody at all needs any easy cash selling some cold drinks? In a park full of thirsty layabouts like me, it would have been easy pickings.
I mean, what happened to all those gangster Ice Cream men who you hear about in the press – the ones who kill each other for their patch? Why weren’t they selling ME ice cream?
Then I thought, “Charlie, why aren’t YOU taking advantage? Why are you just sitting here criticising all these other people in the park for doing the same thing as you?”
That was when I decided to stop thinking. Instead I made a note to myself:
CHARLIE: YOU’VE GOT TO LEARN TO RELAX.
Another valuable lesson learned.