One of the more common things you hear from business owners, both online and offline is… “Make time for your family“. After all it’s very easy to get caught up in “work” and in many cases your family life suffers. I don’t think I have that problem, especially since I began using the services of a virtual assistant.

My problem is usually the opposite. I spend too much time not doing or building my online business. For example… I’m a huge fan of hot and spicy foods, especially hot sauces. Getting the right peppers locally that had “zing” to them was almost impossible. Sure, the ones in the supermarket are advertised as being super-hot, with a nice graphic of flames etc to convince buyers to beware! Truth is.. they’re usually like spicy ketchup to me. So I did what any pepper loving fella would do. I started planting my own!

So while I was harvesting my peppers this morning (see pic above) one of the campaigns I was paying to promote via pay per click advertising went down. I was paying for clicks to a landing page I created, but when some clicked on the actual offer they got a connection error. Yes,, prime example why you MUST watch the store. While I was giddy with all the beautiful peppers I was picking, I was sending money down the tube with my paid ads.

Lesson: If you’re advertising online, be sure to always keep checking your website or pages to ensure they are fully operational. There’s no fun knowing you spent a ton of cash and it resulted in nothing.

BTW, those pretty suckers you see in that pic are the real deal! Habanero! And yes, our girls also eat them with much ease as I do! The kids at their school never believe them when they say they eat the hottest peppers in the world.

Look on a supermarket shelf in your town or city soon. Tehya wants to start making her own brand of hot sauce to market. Last year she spent some time with my mom and she learned the secret to an amazing super-hot, but tasty sauce. Saty tuned if you like the firey stuff.

Most of yesterday  I spent trying to master the art of landing pages as they relate to affiliate marketing and investing in PPC search engines. For the newbies, this is when you buy traffic from the search engines to attract sales/leads to something you’re promoting.

Here’s an example. Go to Google and type in telecommute. When the page loads with the results, look to the right side of the page… you’ll see some ads. Probably you didn’t realize they were ads, but they are. Those represent the ads people purchase when they say they’re buying PPC ads.

Later in the day we decided to join some relatives to attend the rib fest that’s taking place in Burlington, which is about 20 minutes from our place. We were mere meters away from the entrance and I still couldn’t smell anything. Were they using some sort of nasa-like device to suppress that wonderful smell of meat simmering in BBQ sauce over a coal fire?

BTW, we arrived after 8 pm (started about 11 am I think) and the place were jammed-packed. It was already getting dark, but I did manage to take a few pics…

[Show as slideshow]

The assortment of yummies were plentiful. We had (I hope I can remember them all) BBQ flavors from Texas, Memphis, South Carolina, St. Louis, Louisiana, Florida, Alabama and a couple local teams. My vote for best all-round food (ribs, chicken, pulled pork, beans and slaw) goes to Boss Hog. Maybe next year I’ll try the brisket!

Couple observations;

1. I know it’s BBQ and there are many traditions, but would it kill you guys and gals to add a little friggin spice to the mix? The sauces were all good.. smokey and for most part sweet. Here’s what I was looking for… I wanted a piece of meat to challenge my taste buds, where I would have to sit back and rack-my-brains “what’s that I taste” in this sauce. Leave me guessing as to what that amazing secret ingredient is.

Maybe next year someone will be a bit daring and show up with an island rig! Some good jerk pork and chicken or some seasoned (herbs and spices) ribs. Boy I wish I could put together a team to add some Caribbean spice to a good but fairly dull menu.

2. I’ve been to several events this summer and this was the only one where there wasn’t a little dinky tent selling beer at the corner of the park. You know the ones where you have police at the small gate checking ID and you were sectioned off like farm animals. Nope, you were free to roam with beer in hand! Must be the clientèle this event attracted

This is a guest post by Shawnee Bowlin

The first thing that comes to mind when one thinks of working from home is leisure.  The thought immediately invokes an image of an easier life.  Working away from home is often imagined as more stressful.  While that is not always true, balancing work life with home life can be stressful whether one works at home or away from home.

Although working away from home does involve more travel time, there is also travel time with the work-at-home life.  Research, supplies, appointments, and post office visits are some of the reasons for travel.  There is also the time traveling that involves children who live in the home.  This doesn’t stop just because of a home work life.

Balancing the work-at-home life can be just as hectic, if not well organized, as balancing the work-away-from-home life.  It is imperative that schedules are respected when one works at home.  Work must be taken seriously regardless of the circumstances or surroundings.

First, the family must understand that having a parent at home does not mean a relaxed attitude towards the importance of the work life.  No work equals no money.  Working from home can definitely have many perks as opposed to working away from home, but work is still involved.

Second, distractions are still distractions whether one is in an office building or in the home office.  If weaknesses towards distractions can be recognized, quality work time can be maximized by avoiding those weaknesses.  Strong work ethics must prevail in any work situation.  Know your own strengths and weaknesses.

Third, a flexible schedule can hurt as much as it can help if not properly arranged.  Flexibility is often misunderstood when one decides that working from home is better.  Staying up all night to finish a project can still harm a person who neglects to get the work done because of the interruptions during normal work hours.  This also affects the next day’s work and can cause a domino effect until the proper balance is restored.

Finally, there is the responsibility to keep work areas in one place rather than strewn all over the house.  If organized properly, time spent searching for supplies, paperwork, and so on, or time spent rescuing these items from mischievous pets or toddlers can be avoided.  Besides being unprofessional, it just sounds lame to explain to a customer or business contact that the dog ate your project.

Balancing work life with home life is essential to making the most out of the work-from-home experience.  There must be a rational plan of action and a reality check for success to prevail.

After the post yesterday explaining to Cindy what some of the terms used online, in regards to working from home meant. I wanted to briefly touch on a very real and scarry subject. Email scams or phishing. This is when a spammer sends you an email that requires some sort of action by you. The goal is to get you to reveal a password, user name or any other account information.

How to tell if an e-mail message is fraudulent.

Here are a few phrases to look for if you think an e-mail message is a phishing scam.

“Verify your account.”

Businesses should not ask you to send passwords, login names, Social Security numbers, or other personal information through e-mail.

If you receive an e-mail asking you to update your credit card information, do not respond: this is a phishing scam.

“If you don’t respond within 48 hours, your account will be closed.”
These messages convey a sense of urgency so that you’ll respond immediately without thinking. Phishing e-mail message might even claim that your response is required because your account might have been compromised.

“Dear Valued Customer.”
Phishing e-mail messages are usually sent out in bulk and often do not contain your first or last name.

“Click the link below to gain access to your account.”

HTML-formatted messages can contain links or forms that you can fill out just as you’d fill out a form on a Web site. The links that you are urged to click may contain all or part of a real company’s name and are usually “masked,” meaning that the link you see does not take you to that address but somewhere different, usually a phony Web site.

I don’t want to scare you, but this is very REAL and daily thousands of unsuspecting individuals fall for these email scams.

Check out this pic I took this morning…

Kieana was busy in the kitchen last night, strange since she’s never in there. But I didn’t pay much attention to what she was doing. Afterall she’s grounded, so I figured she was bored and was trying to keep occupied. Well, seems she was busy leaving me a message. Not sure if you could read what’s written on the cupcakes.

Please

un

ground

me

Loveyou

Kinda creative, don’t you think?  So I switched around her letters and left her a message … “NO” Yup, I’m just as creative.

Last Saturday I briefly touched on an email I received from Cindy who had some problems understanding some of the words and phrases associated with working from home and making money online.

Read on…

Hello Chris,

Thanks for all the work you do.  I have been out of the job market for 31 years.

WOW! I’m trying to acquaint myself with words like blog, Monetize forum, virtual assistant, website, hits to website, posting, scams and SO MUCH MORE! Talk about feeling antiquated! ;0)

I’ve even been seeing things I grew up with like toys, record albums, furniture and the such talked about as vintage. :0{

Well, I wrote all this to ask if you would explain in your blog the different types of terms out there in the real world that someone might need while searching for an online job.

There  may be many of us out there  that are antiquated.  Haha.

Thanks

Cindy

Cindy, I’ll try my best to explain. Leave me a comment if there’s any more confusion.

Blog - A blog (short for weblog) is a personal online journal that is frequently updated and intended for general public consumption. Cindy, think “diary”! Blogs generally represent the personality of the author or reflect the purpose of the Web site that hosts the blog. Topics sometimes include brief philosophical musings, commentary on Internet and other social issues, and links to other sites the author favors, especially those that support a point being made on a post.

The author of a blog is often referred to as a blogger.

Monetize forum is actually a combination of two words. An Internet forum is a discussion area on a website. Website members can post discussions and read and respond to posts by other forum members. An Internet forum can be focused on nearly any subject and a sense of an online community, or virtual community, tends to develop among forum members. They are also commonly referred to as Web forums, newsgroups, message boards, discussion boards, (electronic) discussion groups, discussion forums, bulletin boards

Here’s an example of a work at home forum : http://www.wfhmarket.com/work-from-home-forum/

Monetize - Basically finding ways to make money on a blog, website and/or forum. So in the case of a forum, there may be ads displayed that generates income for the owner of the forum whenever someone clicks and takes action.  Take a look at the pic below, you’ll see how this forum is monetized.

The area circled in red is a banner that generates incomes whenever someone clicks on it, for the owner or the forum.

Virtual Assistant - Virtual Assistants (typically abbreviated to VAs), are business owners who provide professional administrative, technical, or creative (social) assistance to clients. Basically it’s similar to the role of a secretary in a conventional office setting, except they (the VA) can be located anywhere globally. They perform their work and communicate via the internet.

Hits to website - By you coming to read this blog, it’s considered a hit. Anytime you go to a website, it’s considered a hit. The total number of hits, people visiting a website is called Traffic. The goal of anyone owning a website or any online property like a blog or forum is to attract as many hits as possible. The greater your traffic, the more popular your website is.

Posting - Updating the content on a website, blog or forum. So this bit you’re reading can be considered a post. If you were to go to a forum and leave a question or answer someone’s question, that could be considered a post. I’m sure you’ve read where I’ve said that the “jobs database was updated today with new posts”. When I use it in that way, I mean new jobs were added to the jobs database area.

Scams - Fraud. Anytime someone tries to trick others into sending or spending money that will not lead to what they promised, it’s considered a scam. Here’s a good example… You contact a supposed employer who posted a job online. They then reply saying that you must pay $35.00 admin to be considered for the position. SCAM! No employer will ask you to pay them to be hired. Their only concern will be to fill that vacant position with the best possible applicant. Never pay any sort of fee for the promise of a job. Always be weary when you see stuff advertised on the internet which makes claims of making tons of money with a small investment.

Shoot.. this post is turning out to be a bit long. Cindy or anyone else who may have relating questions, be sure to leave me your comments and I’ll try to get them answered for you.

Enjoy the weekend.