eAction

There is more than one kind of tiredness, you know, don’t you?

You can get physically exhausted from work in which you use your body a lot. Especially if you use muscles you don’t normally use every day. Your bowels can get sluggish too. The old advice to take a spring tonic might help.

You can get emotionally exhausted when you experience a wide range of emotions, and sometimes with sudden changes. That can make you very tired. Perhaps a spring tonic would work here too.

You can also get spiritually exhausted when you give and give of yourself all day, or over several days, and no one refreshes you with input that rejuvenates your spirit. That kind of tiredness can easily be mistaken for physical weariness, however sleep doesn’t replenish you as quickly as few kind words from a friend.

This morning I realized there is yet another kind of tiredness that doesn’t fall into the above categories too well. Yesterday I had a pen pal of many years come in for a one day visit. We are both gregarious women and talk and talked for hours on end. Last night I sort of sank together like a sack of potatoes after I’d taken her to the airport, and was trying to check email. When I got up this morning I felt so very tired yet.

Why? I hadn’t done any unusually physical work, nor been on any emotional roller-coaster, and I didn’t think I’d given away that much of myself without getting plenty of strokes of encouragement too. After some thought I concluded that it is possible to get another kind of “tired” just from social interaction, even if all positive. Particularly since I don’t spend hours and hours in conversation with Dad.

So now when you are really tired, maybe it isn’t the fault of your business. Stop and evaluate. What kind of weariness do you really have? The physical, emotional, and social kinds just need some rest and time. You’ll recover fine. If you are spiritually tired, you need time to de-brief with the Lord Jesus, and some encouragement from people who understand and care for you.

Rejoicing in spring is a good tonic too, for most kinds of weary tension. Go out and revel in it!

Sometimes we don’t know that we already know enough to produce a money-maker. Sometimes we discover that by watching how others do it. But it is also possible to produce a money-maker and to be stalled with it. All because we don’t know the tricks to advertising and promoting it. Where can you learn all this stuff? Especially if you’re trying to make money online on a very short shoestring budget?

(I’ve often said my shoe string is so short I can’t even tie it around my finger!)

Well, there ARE people out there who are doing it, and on a practically zero budget. You’d think that they would keep their secrets all to themselves, and keep raking in the money with bigger and bigger rakes. But no, they KNOW there are plenty of people out there dying to know those secrets, so they write books - e-Books more specifically, which have absolutely no publishing costs to them, if they know how to create them.

Remember, all an e-book is, is a file containing the web pages or the PDF pages of their book. A file can be copied innumberable times, and downloaded from a site to just about any computer in the world. No printer, or paper is involved, unless the customer who buys a copy decides to print it off on her printer at home. All the owner has to do is write the book, or hire a ghost writer to write it. That’s all the easy part.

Then they build a web site, usually only a long page with sales copy that chats up the visitor and persuade them that it would be a smart move to click on the purchase link at the bottom. Writing that sales copy, if they don’t know how to do it themselves, will costs them a “pretty penny.” Meaning lots of money!

Now these smart netpreneurs always have a large mailing list, or two or three. They send out an email to their lists raving about their new “product” and what it will do for the readers. Presto! Hundreds of people click on the link, read that sales copy and buy. So within 24 hours they’ve made a huge number of sales.

Then they start advertising that link in other’s ezines, or else, if they have an affiliate program lined up, they notify their affiliates that there is this fantastic new “product” out that they can earn a bit of commission on. Now all those people get into gear and start advertising their coded link. The author or owner of the e-book keeps raking in his share of the sales.

They have a few more tricks like that, but you get the idea. Most of them, just start over with a new e-book product.

So how do you learn from them if you can’t afford to buy all those e-books where they spill their secrets?

Well, I’ve stumbled on one myself. If you sign up as an affiliate, you will get on their mailing list and sometimes they do slip in advice that is helpful to figure out their methods. Can you read between the lines? Then you’ll spot some more.

You pay attention and you try out the things you can figure out to do. That helps to solidify in your mind the basics, and you keep paying attention when these successful netpreneurs rave about their ventures. Toughen up your emotions against the benefits they talk about, and pick up on the underlying features that provide those benefits If you’ve got your wits about you, you can figure these things out.

Now, comes the hardest part of all - applying your fingers to the keyboard of your computer, and doing all these steps. The first time may not be perfect, but try it again. Keep learning, and try again!

One day you’ll be coy and clever about sharing your secrets with the world.

If someone told you they could turn one idea for an e-book into total online sales of $253,603.47 would you believe them?

I might! You see I’ve learned about the value of e-books, and really smart marketing. One fellow in the UK seems to have got it down to a science now. Neil Shearing can make a quarter of a million dollars in about a month without creating a physical product or spending a dime on advertising! He does it with e-books. Yes, digital files that people pay for and download.

Neil has just released an e-book called “Insider Rollout Secrets” where he explains each step of the rollout and how much each step earned in sales. By finding out what Neil did, you’ll be armed with “secret weapons” for generating more traffic, signups and sales! You’ll get the facts in plain English from someone who “did it” and can show *you* how to do it too!

Click on this link now for an introductory $10 discount… it’s good for a limited time only… Rollout

At the very least you should read his sales copy and see if you can guess his techniques.

When you are designing for web pages and sites, you soon discover that nice graphics can add an atmosphere and touch which affects how people read or perceive your text. The information you have for them.

Some of us can get really distracted when trying out the making and placing of such graphics. It’s easy for a creative type of person to go overboard and spend far-FAR too much time on this kind of stuff.

My theory is that you have allow yourself to go a bit overboard while you are learning the how-tos, and then later as you are more familiar with the possibilities, then you can start exercising discipline and discernment, and cut back on the graphics to where you really only need a touch to affect the text you are providing.

(Sigh!) I thought I was finished with the overboard stage, but I’ve been discovering all the marvelous things that are in GIMP, the program Linux people use the most for their graphics work, and I’m like a kid let loose in a wonderful play room. I fear it is going to be quite a while before I am able to move on to the next stage of maturity and discretion.

GIMP comes packed with most Linux distros. When you first open it, with it’s tiny windows and menus, you wonder if this is all that you’ve read it is. At first I didn’t know where to begin, but gradually I’ve moved from re-sizing my photos.

Then I needed to do some page headers for my web sites, and I wanted that neat drop shadowed look. I ended up going on line and found plenty of sites with tutorials for GIMP. It stands for “GNU Image Manipulation Program.”

Turns out that you can get it in a Windows edition, but I never heard of it until I started moving in a Linux world. If you don’t have it, you may download it for free from http://www.gimp.org/

After some experimenting and checking the multitude of tutorials online for GIMP techniques and tricks, I learned how to make drop shadows for my page banners. Then I discovered that my latest version had a short step in the Scripts_fu menu that would do that for me.

I’ve done a few of that, and began to think of other things to try. In experimenting with those I suddenly came across a whole bunch of other script menus branching off the Xtns menu at the very top. (Guess I had ignored that because I didn’t know what that stood for. I still don’t, but there’s treasures in there!)

I’ve been designing wonderful 3-D headers for web pages in all kinds of textures, looks, embossing, carved, tubed, - oh, there’s so many, and I’m still trying them out, just to see what they are.

It’s all so easy too! You go from Xtns - > Scripts_Fu -> Logos -> then pick from that new menu of 29 fancy styles!
When you do that, you get a new window which allows you to type in the text of your header, pick colours, and size, and it seems to have a wider range of fonts than I’ve found the usual way. When you have set everything you want to, click on “Okay” and watch the Script progress bar for a few seconds. Suddenly there is your new header!

I would keep on playing here, but I need to get some other work done. I’ll have to tear myself away for now. ;(

If you like to design graphics, I tell you, you’ve got a treasure chest in GIMP.

Oh, and I just read on an archived discussion group email, that it is possible to design your book covers, save them in .tiff and take them to your printer. Saves hundreds of dollars in having a professional or the printer do that for you!

“If only the next step is clear, then the one thing to do is take it! Don’t pledge your Lord or yourself to any steps beyond what you know. You don’t see them yet.” (Amy Carmichael).

Now isn’t that good advice?

I’ve just been reminded this week that I can be quite a visionary at times. That is necessary too. Any business or organization that only looks to the bottom line, and plods along with just the immediate details in mind is going to be limited in what it can accomplish. On the other hand, when I just have my head in the clouds and live in the future tense, I don’t make any practical progress.

Dear Amy, an Irish girl that ended up as a missionary mama to many, many orphans in India, has very practical advice here. If you only have one thing you can do towards your goals, even though all the rest look impossible - take that one step. Don’t make foolish promises, but if God is guiding you, the next step will be clear and do-able when the right time comes.

I’m still convinced that God wants us to be visionary and practical at the same time. He’ll help us develop balance, don’t you agree?

Steps to Seeing A Vision of Your Christian Business:
1. Brainstorm alone and in prayer for goals and purposes
2. Brainstorm with others you trust and respect to refine and add to the mix
3. Research the main options that rise as good possibilities; answer the unknowns (ie. is there a need, is anyone else already meeting it, what would it take to carry each option out?)
4. Pray over these more developed ideas and try to discern which best meets your goals and purposes.
5. Draw up plans and scenarios - note where you still have gaps in knowledge and resources
6. Do more research - look for answers! Look for resources!
7. Refine your plan and outline your practical steps.

Steps to Being Practical in Your Christian Business:
1. Pray for wisdom and patience.
2. Consult others, particularly those who have learned through experience.
3. Make lists of your ideas, research, resources, needs, people you can count on, and what to do.
4. Determine priorities and establish blocks of time to work at this.
5. Recruit helpers; don’t try to do everything alone.
6. Delegate some of the work to others.
7. Stop regularly to review progress and any adjustments to be made to your plans.

Don’t hesitate to repeat any earlier steps when you need to; there is no shame in retracing steps to get a fresh run at your goals and purposes.

Not everyone is a voracious reader like I am, but the best way to get good ideas, and your intuition tuned to recognize trouble and wiser business options is to saturate your mind with the reading of books and websites where others share their own stories of how they did it. You may take in far more than you’ll ever use. But in the end, those who recognize great business opportunities and those who seem to just always know what to do, are people who have done this. Never take on the attitude that you know it all. Keep learning!

One of the smartest thing I ever did was sign up for a lot of ezines when I started out. I downloaded free e-books and devoured them. At first everything was a new discovery. After a while I learned to recognize shoddy, recycled stuff, and to spot the better quality advice.

Now I think I can predict which people will fail. It’s the ones who think they haven’t got the time, or don’t need to keep reading and learning.

I discovered this morning that I had run out of saved notes for this blog, so I went online to do some learning and exploring in Linux. There is NO END to all one can learn. It didn’t take me long to find my way from my bookmarks to this page;

www.linux.org/docs/ldp/howto/HOWTO-INDEX/howtos.html

After scanning down that list of how-tos I clicked on five or six, and explored them a bit. Just now I’ve been busy reading up on DocBooks. I still have a lot to learn, but I find it interesting.

For today I think I’ll just leave you with a few good “where to find help and tutorials” links.

The above one of course, is a great starting point.

You should also put the Google/Linux search site on your toolbar. This is where Google favours us with more specific linux search results; www.google.com/linux You’ll need it often!

Even if you know nobody else who is using Linux on their computer and you think you’ll never learn without someone leaning over your shoulder and telling you step by step what to do, you really are never alone once you learn how to seek out help online.

If you have only one computer, and only Linux on it, I can see where if you get locked out of your system, you are stuck because you have no way of going online to look for helps in troubleshooting. However, if you have a dual boot, you can go into the other system (ie. Windows) and go search from there. Or go on another computer and search from there. As long as you have those two options, the answers are out there. Guaranteed. You just have to learn how to find them!

“If we just give God the little that we have, we can trust Him to make it go around.” (Gloria Gaither)

Have you found that to be true also? Sometimes we think we are so limited. We can’t do our dreams right now, so we put them on a back burner, and after a time of frustration, we resign ourselves to the idea that they are not going to happen.

That happens as well when we know there’s a good deed or business step we should take, but - well, I haven’t got time right now. Or, I haven’t got the resources that I would need to do that. So it never happens.

Whoa! Say “Whoa,” to yourself too. We’re forgetting something. If God wants us to do that, He will provide the resources and the wisdom and the strength. All we need to do is reach out and receive those portions by faith.

“Now glory be to God who by his mighty power at work within us is able to do far more than we would ever dare to ask or even dream of.” (Ephesians 3:20 The Living Bible).

I have web designing on my brain these days. Heavy duty! I’m renovating my own three sites, plus one for a mission organization, and starting a new one for another ministry. Plus, I’m helping two friends with theirs; one to revise all the pages a bit, and the other up from scratch, so to speak.

I’m thankful now for all the things I’ve learned by trial and error over the past seven years, but it occurs to me that I should make a list of the things I wish someone had taught me at the beginning. It would have saved me heaps of time, and got me ahead faster. Sometimes when we pass along such lessons, someone else can be spared many delays and frustrations. So hold on while I compile my list.

1. I should have avoided the wysiwyg (what-you-see-is-what-you-get) kind of web design programs and gone straight into learning basic html coding. I thought at first I wasn’t smart enough to learn that coding language. Dumb line of thinking. I have much more freedom and liberty to try new design features now that I know the basic web design techniques. Like learning English, you can always add more to your vocabulary later. What appeared to be easy-peasy programs just delayed my true progress and skills.

2. Get a domain name. They were like $60 to $200 back when I began, so I couldn’t afford them, and fiddled with free hosting packages the first couple of years. I began to read that your web site wouldn’t be treated as a real business if it was on a free host, and chaffed, but once I had a domain and saw the advantages, I knew it was true. Now it is possible to get a domain registration for under $5 or $10 a year.

3. It is possible to learn everything I want to know about designing a web site online. There are plenty of tutorial sites. But I should have scheduled myself a learning hour - even a half hour on a daily basis from the beginning. Then I’d be up on the latest design skills all the time, and by now, I’d know everything!

4. One smart thing I did was join up with the affiliate program at SiteSell. It’s called the 5 Pillar Program, and is free to join. It provides nearly weekly emails with great advice on the planning of the content of the site. That’s where I learned about the free Masters’ Courses. First they came out as 5-day email courses, now they are available as e-books. Those have been priceless in learning how to brainstorm for themes, how to find out what people are looking for, and how the competition is - or is not meeting that need. Then also, how to use words that persuade and sell to get people to do what I most want them to do on my site. (These courses are available now on my site for free downloads; http://BouquetofEnterprises.biz/B/MastersCourses.shtml)

5. There are steps to learn in how to get a site listed in the search engines, and on directories, and how to exchange links with similar sites. Again, these were lessons scattered through my self-training years. But it would have been nice if someone had guided me through that earlier, and helped me to stay away from classifieds and surfing programs. They ate up valuable time that I could have used to create still more web sites!

Hmm. Maybe these five points would be enough for a short course? I wonder how steep the learning curve is for that.