Always put out 100%

Ever since I was involved in my first “real” job, when I was just 15 years old, I have always been a believer that you should always put in 100% effort into whatever job you are doing.  I don’t care if you are a street sweeper, a graphic artist, or a janitor cleaning toilets.  Never hold back, always do the best job that you possibly can.  It is through this kind of effort that you will move ahead in your work and in your life.

One person that I get inspiration from is marketing guru Seth Godin.  Seth and I hold a lot of similar beliefs, and I enjoy reading his site.  The other day, Seth had an article on his site that really spelled out the way I feel.  His article is entitled “The sad lie of mediocrity” and it talks about the pitfall of just being mediocre.

In his article, Seth points out that:

Doing 4% less does not get you 4% less.

Doing 4% less may very well get you 95% less.

That’s because almost good enough gets you nowhere. No sales, no votes, no customers. The sad lie of mediocrity is the mistaken belief that partial effort yields partial results. In fact, the results are usually totally out of proportion to the incremental effort.

I could not agree with Seth more!  Always do your best, and that is when you will reap rewards, even greater rewards than you ever expected.

This theory applies to any kind of business that you engage in, and in particular to online endeavors.  On the internet there is less to make you stand out, so the things that do make your business stand out must be taken advantage of to the fullest.  Doing your very best, offering the very best of customer service and such is one way to make your business stand out!

Spruce up your blog with some pictures!

One good method of earning money online is through Blogging.  We have talked about that a lot on this site in the past.  The methods of earning money with a blog are virtually endless.  You can put ads on the site from any of a number of ad publishing companies (Google, Widgetbucks, Chitika, and others).  You can earn money through other means - I have one site where I make 90% of my money through Real Estate commissions.  Anyway, as I said the possibilities are almost endless.

One thing that you need to do, though, is present your blog in a way that people will actually read it!  This means a couple of things.  Firstly, of course, you need to write on topics of interest, and you need to write well.  Another thing that I recommend is putting some nice images on your blog.  Pictures always grab attention.

But, where do you get the images?  Do you just go find nice pictures on the internet, “grab” them, and put them on your site?  Well, a lot of people do that, but I don’t recommend it.  I don’t do that myself, and I think you shold not either.  Doing that can lead to some trouble for you down the road, and you don’t want trouble.

I recommend four ways of getting nice pictures for your site.

The first method that I will talk about is to take a lot of pictures yourself, and use them on your site!  Did you realize, even just one picture can be used for many blog posts?  It’s true.  if you crop it in different ways, make it differnet sizes, take out just part of the picture to use, etc., you can get a ton of useful images from a single good picture!  I know, because I do this myself.  Get yourself a good little digital camera and carry it with you wherever you go!  I have a library of 10,000 or more photos that I have taken over the years, and I use them all the time to spruce up my articles online!  You can do it too.

The second way that I recommend for getting good images for your site is through Stock Image sites.  I like to use a site called “Dreamstime” which sells thousands of stock images.  You can often buy stock images for as low as $1 or $2 per image.  That’s dirt cheap!  You know what?  You can even get stock images free!  Dreamstime has a section where every day, 365 days per year (366 on leap year!), they offer one or two of the images for free download if you are a member (which is free).  I make it a habit to download the free images every day, even if I can think of no use for them.  Someday, I will write an article that will have some use for those images!  And, if I don’t ever use a certain image, what have I lost?  A small space on my hard drive?  No big deal!

The third method that you can use to get pictures to use on your site is to check Wikipedia.  Most pictures on Wikipedia carry a Creative Commons license, which means that you can use them (just give credit to where they came from).  There are some nice images, and usually high resolution images available for you on Wikipedia.  Just go the Wikipedia article for the subject that you are writing about and see what images they have for that particular subject.

And, finally, the fourth way that I suggest for getting images is to use a WordPress plugin called “Photo Dropper.”  Photo Dropper will go to Flikr and find photos that carry a Creative Commons license, which meet your keyword that you search for.  Any photos found by Photo Dropper can be used with no licensing problems, and Photo Dropper even automatically does everything needed to fit the terms of the license, by automatically adding a credit to the photographer, and a link back to their Flikr account.  It’s a great plugin!

So, spruce up your blog or website!  Add some nice images to make it look better and to grab your reader’s attention!

Take the first step!

This morning, I was working on another of my websites, writing some new articles to be posted over the next few days.  While working, I was listening to a US radio station over the internet. Suddenly, a commercial came on the station.  It was just in the background, so I didn’t listen closely.  However, the commercial was somewhat related to this site, so it caught a little more of my attention than would be normal.

How was it related to this site?  Well, a company was advertising for a course that they were offering in how to earn money on the Internet, which is what this site is all about.  I’ve been earning my living online for a decade or so now (6+ years straight, with some part time earning before that), so anytime this subject comes up, it always gets my interest.

At the end of the commercial, they had a line that they gave, I’ll say it was the company’s “tag line,” and it was quite effective:

Deciding to be wealthy is the first step toward becoming wealthy.

Now, let me say, this is something that I have believed for a long, long time.  It’s not just a throw away line, or a gimmick to try to sell something for me.  I honestly believe firmly that this statement is 100% correct.

How about you, do you want to be wealthy?  Really want to be wealthy?  Most people will instinctively answer yes to that question.  But, if you examine their life, it is easy to see that they don’t act in ways that would prove their “yes” answer.  In fact, I believe that many people are afraid of becoming wealthy.

Let’s even take this examination beyond being wealthy.  How about this question - do you want to earn money on the Internet, enough money to enjoy a comfortable life?  Many people, in my opinion are afraid of that.

There is nothing shameful about being wealthy, or earning a comfortable living.  If you think that there is something shameful or wrong in doing that, you are handicapping yourself, and you will likely never experience true success.

A few months back, I wrote a series of articles entitled “Bob’s $1 per day project.”  You can find some of the articles featured on the Homepage of this site.  $1 per day is not much, some people will just shrug that off, even ignore it, perhaps even laugh about it.  But, to become wealthy, you must start somewhere.  Each $1 extra per day that you can earn is a building block.  If you can get an extra $1 per day, then find another $1 per day to put on top of that, pretty soon you can start earning some real money.  But, you must want to do it.  If you don’t really want it, and believe that you can do it, you will never do it!

Are you ready to decide to be wealthy?  How about deciding to just make an extra dollar tomorrow?  That’s the first step!