This guest post by Don Silver is the FINAL post in the awesome VBL Guest Post Month!

To all of you who contributed, and those that have commented on all the excellent posts from everyone, thank you, sincerely, for making October such a great month – and the one with the most traffic EVER, here at Virtual Business Lifestyle

I’ll see you guys on Monday with my October ‘Virtual CEO’ Monthly Report!!!

In the real world of brick and mortar business, every day millions of people are dragging themselves from their comfortable beds, performing their morning rituals of washing and breakfast to head to their jobs. In their daily grind some are thinking that there must be a better and easier way to make a living.

All these millions know someone or know of someone who has “made it” by quitting their boring existence and become their own boss using their own computers in the comfort and ease of home.

While the idea of working from home sounds like an ideal solution, most are just not preparing. Many of these unhappy people will just quit their jobs and jump right into the first internet marketing business they find with no preparation, no knowledge of what they are doing, no education, and no hope of success. Failure is their only option and they are not even aware of it.

According to many sources, more than 90% (Ninety percent) of all Internet business start-ups end in failure within the first 120 (one hundred twenty) days. And that number is all too accurate: NINETY PERCENT!

This alarming failure rate goes unheeded for a number of reasons:

1. Many don’t know the statistical probabilities they face.
2. Many don’t see themselves as being part of the failures or they wouldn’t leap.
3. Many are talked into things they are unprepared for.
4. Many don’t know the basic tenant of – “If you fail to plan, then you plan to fail.”

Of course, success is still a possibility. There IS that other 10% (ten percent) that do succeed. For them, success doesn’t happen by accident. And success isn’t just a crap shoot. Success happens because of some very important factors.

Success happens because people learn about internet marketing and how it works. They do not expect to get rich quick or be able to make a killing overnight and retire to a tropical isle.

It is strange but somehow the same people, who wouldn’t dream of starting a real world business, think they can make a go of an internet business even though they have no business background.

People think that an internet business just means that they no longer have to get up and go to work. They think they can simply work when the feel like it and still make a good living. They do not understand that any business requires them to work hard and sometimes work long hours.

Some Wrong Ideas on the Internet

That 90% failure rate of new Internet businesses really is not surprising when you think about the sort of people who start an internet business.

Most people seem to think that being a successful internet marketer is as easy as getting a website built and getting their own domain name and they could not be farther from reality.

Being a successful internet marketer requires self-discipline. People read books like “4 Hour Work Week” and think that partying all night, sleeping until noon and then 3 or 4 hours with a computer will make them rich.

There is not a magic button to push to have instant massive traffic to their million-dollar-like website and fistfuls of cash in their bank. It is just not going to happen.

Internet marketing does not run on auto-pilot. And while established internet marketing types do not put in the long, boring hours they have built their businesses by doing that in the past.

It does not happen overnight for anybody. Most people are not prepared for the time requirement necessary for an internet business to achieve success.

They Do Not Have a Business Background

All businesses whether large or small, Internet or “brick and mortar” have two things in common: they are a BUSINESS and must be operated like a business! Business people must understand accepted business practices.

There are simple and basic concepts like “acceptable over-head expenses in relation to projected income”. All entrepreneurs need to understand profit and loss and what constitutes each.

It is not a requirement to have a college degree in business to be successful but it wouldn’t hurt. On the other hand some basic business knowledge is an absolute necessity.

If it is difficult to balance your check book, then it might be a good idea to keep your day job and forget about being in business.

Yes, you can hire an accounting firm that will tell you WHEN to make tax deposits, but they will not tell you IF you need to make tax deposits.

An accountant can tell you if you made a profit but not how you make it. If you have no business background get some good business advice before you consider opening any business.

The fact is that all successful businesses follow the rules of sound business principles. A successful business is not an accident. The numbers tell the story that only 10% of all new internet businesses are successful or are even still in existence after their first 120 days.

Even the expectation of profit is not reasonable for the first few month.

Have sufficient resources available for everything from startup costs to personal needs for a period of time. It’s called “capital” and there is no alternative to plenty of it.

They Do Not Have The Right Mindset!

Most of us have heard the phrase, “He has an attitude!” And it is often a derogatory remark made about a person with a negative attitude.

The word “attitude” is important when thinking about marketing start-ups. A good attitude or a good mind set will not guarantee success but a bad attitude or a bad mind set can guarantee failure.

Let’s examine a few attitudes that will absolutely guarantee failure:

1. I can work when I want to. This is absolutely wrong! You cannot just work when it suits you. Expect many long and sometimes boring hours of hard work for your business to succeed.
2. I can get rich quick! This is a dangerous one. While getting rich quick is possible, there are too many “get rich quick” schemes that are only ways for the unscrupulous to take advantage of the willing. Expect to be wealthy in whatever time it takes. It is possible to make a very comfortable living in internet marketing but it is not usually quick or easy.
3. I don’t need a business plan. Internet business is still a business. All business principles apply to online business as they do to brick and mortar business. It is imperative that you have a plan for your success based on sound business principles.
4. Internet business people do not have a boss. You are the boss. A good boss sees that all work is completed on time and in full, or you will fail. Set up a work schedule and goals to meet or you will find yourself working at a job under a boss who does do those things and maybe for minimum wage.

Ways to Avoid Failure

Starting a business … any business … has no guarantee of success, period!

Even large multi-national businesses can fail in a new business venture. Failure is always an option and the possibility or probability of success can be enhanced.

You can increase your possibility of success by:

1. Making a business plan BEFORE starting your online business. To remind you one of the things I said at the beginning: “If you fail to plan, then you plan to fail.” A plan for success is a requirement. Have the steps listed in great detail including reasonable cost estimates for completing each step.
2. Expect to work hard to achieve your goals. Never expect things to be easy. Most of the time things are not as easy as they appear. Each successive step will require its own work, time and patience. Sometimes things don’t go right on the first try. Be willing to keep going again and again until you succeed.
3. Do not fall for a get-rich-quick schemes. The internet woods are full of those who prey upon those who are looking for quick and easy ways to become rich. Most are ways for the other person to get rich quick from your money.

Remember those statistics! Ninety percent of all new internet businesses fail in the first 120 days. You don’t have to be part of that majority. You can become a part of that 10% minority of successful internet business enterprises. Find something that others are having success with – to the level you want your own success, do what they do, and you will have your own success. Be prepared to do whatever it takes for as long as it takes.

Don Silver – Luxury Vagabond, world traveler, entrepreneur, big thinker and writer of thought provoking articles. More information and assorted links at: www.donsilver.info

This guest post by Adrian Swinscoe is part of the VBL Guest Post Month!

Many of you will be familiar with the concept of karma. According to karma theory, every action has a consequence and good acts will have positive results and bad acts will produce negative results. In more common terms, karma is explained by various sayings like:

“What goes around, comes around”

“You reap what you sow”

“The laws of cause and effect”

However, there is an additional element of karma that I want to talk to you about today. That element is talked about in Buddhism and links karma directly to the motives behind an action. This means that the motivation behind something can make the difference between something being a “good” or “bad” action.

Whether you believe in karma or not, this additional element is important in business or being an entrepreneur.

Why?

Well, often when developing our businesses we may want things to happen faster than they often do and, to get things moving faster, we can be lured into resorting to other tactics to get stuff done. However, in doing this we can lose sight of our and others ability to sense when someone is not being ‘true’ or is being ‘nice’ in order to get us to do something. This is our emotional instinct or ‘sixth’ sense and tells us a lot about what is going on around us and can reveal our true motivations behind our actions.

What does this mean for us as entrepreneurs?

Well, if we look at networking as an example. In business, networking is seen as an essential strategy for building new relationships, expanding your network and finding new possibilities to help you grow your business. However, many entrepreneurs are impatient creatures and can get frustrated with networking as it can take time to start delivering results. This can mean that they can slip back into selling or trying to figure out how they can leverage their network to get what they want and not on how they can help their network.

I think John F. Kennedy said this best at his inaugural address in 1961 when he said:

‘And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country.’

So, if your network was your country ask yourself what you can do for your ‘country’ not what your ‘country’ can do for you. I think this is a great way to think about your networking and to make sure that your motivations are in the right direction.

Going about your networking in this way will allow you to build your karma in your network and, hopefully in time that will flow back to you directly or in other ways.

How’s your karma in your business?

Thanks to greencandy8888 for the image.

Adrian Swinscoe is an author, speaker and consultant from the UK who writes about customer-focused business growth at Ideas for Business Growth. He has a strong belief that any established business could dispense with its traditional marketing activities and still grow itself by focusing on developing and nurturing its existing customer base and retaining its current clients. Why not connect with him on Twitter @adrianswinscoe, LinkedIn or if you liked this article then why not subscribe to his RSS Feed?

This guest post by Jaime Tardy is part of the VBL Guest Post Month!

I only work 20 hours per week and after reading the Virtual Business Lifestyle and talking with Maren Kate, I thought a virtual assistant could push my business forward faster. I coach local entrepreneurs but wanted to branch out online. I wanted to find a virtual assistant that was computer savvy and could help me grow my audience online. I hired my first Virtual Assistant this past May.

Boy was it a process to figure out how to hire a VA! I made quite a few mistakes along the journey and I wanted to share them so you don’t make the same ones.

Mistake #1: Going the Cheap Route

First I researched online to find the best site to find a VA. Since I didn’t want to spend a lot of money up front I looked for the cheaper sites like Craigslist in the Philippines and Onlinejobs.ph.

I wanted someone that would work 20 hours per week, and have a good knowledge of computers, back-linking, researching, and WordPress.

I signed up for onlinejobs.ph at $50 per month. I spent a few days going through the resumes, and emailing possible candidates. I emailed about 5 people and waited a few days. I didn’t hear anything. I found 10 more and emailed them. I waited a few days and didn’t hear anything.

Mistake #2: Long Emails – Time Wasted 10 days

Was something wrong? I had no idea why I hadn’t heard anything. I emailed the owner of Onlinejobs.ph to ask what happened. He asked me how long the email was that I was sending. It was pretty long, since the email contained info about my business and some questions to answer.

Apparently it was way too long. I should have just emailed a one or two sentence email that asked if they are still available. Apparently if an email is too long, it can easily overwhelm the candidate.

So I sent the same people plus a few more a short two sentence email.

Mistake #3: Interviewing – No Phone Interview

I received a few email responses back. I emailed a list of questions asking them to answer them within two days. I figured if they couldn’t answer within two days then I had an answer on how they would respond to deadlines. Only about three people passed the test.

I sent another email and asked a few more follow-up questions. I wanted to find out what they thought their weaknesses were and what they were best at. I asked normal interview questions like, “What are your weaknesses?” and “How have you improved your current employers business?”

Only two responded back. Both sets of answers seemed pretty reasonable and neither jumped out at being better. In the end I thought I knew as much as I needed to know to get started. I thought that I should do a phone interview via Skype but I didn’t want to deal with time zones and setting up a time.

I hired Kelly, a 22 year old that just graduated with a degree in IT for 20 hours per week at $160 per month.

Now I realize that we can judge character much better over the phone than in an email. I would never recommend any of my local clients to hire someone without a face to face interview.

I was impatient to hire someone, so I hired someone without completing the process I should have completed to find the best candidate.

Mistake #4: Previous Experience

The resume said she was very proficient in back-linking, some programming languages, SEO and internet marketing. I even asked questions about what she had done and it all seemed to make sense.

It turns out she didn’t know much about any of what she had claimed to be proficient in. She had done back-linking once before and only with a paid back-linking site.

Mistake #5: No Consequences

I set firm deadlines, but many of them were not met. I wanted to give her a chance. I didn’t want to hire someone else and I wanted to make sure I was doing everything I could do to make things clear.

I set a three month trial period and we would decide to keep going or stop based on the relationship and how much work I had available for her.

We used Basecamp HQ to keep track of progress and I set weekly tasks and how long each task should take. Into about the third week I didn’t hear from her for four consecutive workdays. I asked what happened and she explained that there had been power outages in the Philippines.

Two weeks later I didn’t hear from her again. She explained that they were having presidential elections and there was a lot going on there.

I asked if my tasks were completed and she kept telling me she needed more time. After a few weeks of working on the same task without results I confronted her. Then she told me the situation.

She didn’t really know exactly what she was supposed to do but didn’t want to ask. A friend of hers said she could do it. Since the friend of hers needed money, she thought that she could outsource my tasks to her friend; that way the task would be done and her friend could earn money.

My virtual assistant was outsourcing her work! I wasn’t sure if I should be really disappointed or really impressed.

Turns out her friend really didn’t know what to do either and nothing was done.

I gave her a few more research projects which brought us to the end of the three month trial. Needless to say I didn’t renew the contract.

The Final Results

In the end I ended up with some research, and a lot of wasted time. I learned a lot about hiring a VA; but the biggest mistake I made was trying to go it alone and cheap. If I had it all to do over again, I would have spent the money up front for a service like Virtual Staff Finder. Not only would having a service like this had saved me time, but it would have saved me a few headaches too!

Thanks for reading this guest post. I’m Jaime Tardy. At my blog, Eventual Millionaire, my motto is: Life is about more than money. First you have to create the life you want, and then you can make your million. That’s why I call myself an “eventual” millionaire.