22
Nov

Time to Think

I went to northern California this past week due to a not so gravy situation. My aunt passed due to a heart attack at the ripe age of 39. She was a very happy outgoing and overall loving person. She has had a life full of medical problems and is finally at ease in peace.

Spending time with family and away from work gave me a lot of time to think. About life mostly, like what am I doing, am I happy, what can I change, if I were to pass today how would I feel about my journey.

I came to a few conclusions, first of all I am very satisfied with what I have done and where I am going. Although I am doing nothing but working my life away at the present, I am okay with it. I know that everyone has to do things that they don’t want to do at some point in their life, and I would rather that time be now rather than later. Besides its not like I HATE what I am doing it is just boring sometimes and has its days. But this is true for any job I would get, no matter what it is.

As for what can I change, I can change a lot of things. Starting with making sure that I am not rushing things and am able to stay open minded so I don’t miss anything. I am very excited for the new year so I can give myself a few more goals to meet. I find pleasure in accomplishing personal tasks. I also need to keep my cool more often and think about things more before any action is taken. Overall I need to make sure that I am happy with every decision I make and have no regrets in life. As it stands now I have no regrets about anything in my past, and I like that.

This post is more of just a ramble of mine but thats okay with me, haha….

Wow its crazy how a close death makes you think about everything completely different, I mean we are not guaranteed anything in life, not even another waking breathe.

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8
Nov

When nature calls!

I went on a hike this weekend with my buddy Jon Waraas and another friend ill call Sch. We had a blast together, we took our dogs and headed to Palisades to venture out on a great hike.

We hiked for about three hours, nothing to long or hard but it was great non the less. And it was well needed, I’ve been working tons lately and needed a break. Now I feel great, and am craving another hike here soon before winter settles in over Idaho.

The scenery was unlike any hike I have ever been on. It changes dramatically in such little distance. One minute its a marshy swamp, then we are crossing a fast flowing river. Then we are up on a cliff looking at a wall of jagged mountain ranges. Then into dense forest and back to the river once again. There was so much going on and the weather couldn’t have been better. Not hot but just warm enough to stay warn while we were walking. The best part is that there wasn’t any steep grades of trail that we had to endure. It was mellow for the most part, and very peaceful.

Its amazing how soothing nature can be if you let it. I didn’t have a worry in the world while I was out there. I was set on having a good time and unwinding. Plus I enjoyed the exercise, I need to start walking more. All around it was just a great trip. Oh haha except for the part where my dog almost fell into the river, and couldn’t get back up the cliff. So I had to rush down there and rescue him. That part sucked but the rest, AWESOME!!!

Check out my pics on facebook.

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3
Nov

Meeting My Goals


Its already November… WHAT????? Wow, this has officially been the fastest year of my life. I have been so focused on working 24/7 that time has just slipped right by. Its kinda nice though, back at the first of the year I made a few new years resolutions and am surprised at how close I am to meeting them.

One of my goals was to exercise almost everyday so I could stay fit and healthy. Ill admit that I didn’t work out everyday, but I did work out about three times a week on average. I am pretty surprised because I have set a bunch of new years resolutions in the past and have lost sight of them about two months in. But this year has been different. Another goal that I set, was to start and business and be making about 2000 a month pretty consistently. I also wanted to be working for myself and not for anyone else. I was pretty tired of working under someone and getting walked on. Again here I am being my own boss and I pull in about 1000-1500 on average and it is getting better and better each month.

The last goal that I set for myself last new years was to be the number one site for the term Idaho Falls Web Design, in Google, and I reached that goal happily last week!! I’m scared to say it but it seems like all the pieces are just sliding into place perfectly. It is taking a ton of dedication and long hours, but in my eyes it has been TOTALLY worth it the entire time. I would change a second of it for the world.

On that note, I’m super excited or the holidays to be arriving! This is my favorite time of the year, I love to snowboard so the anticipation of snow is intense. I hope that I can exceed my resolutions before the end of this year. Wish me luck!!!

Be easy..

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20
Oct

Automation

My good friend Jon Waraas has a great business system going on, and I think I may want to mimic it for my business. Let me explain why. He has a number of sites that generate a decent amount of income, but he has them all on full automation.

What I mean by this is that he doesn’t have to interact in order to make sales. He has it set up, so that clients/customers and connect directly with his employees, or with his support team. The system includes a customer login and then a portal that holds all the info that each party inserts. He has administrative power of coarse to keep things in line and make sure it runs as smooth as possible. ALl the orders that are made are automatically sent to a specific employee and the orders are completed.

On the other part of his business, he sales products online by way of drop shipping. This is also on full automation. He has crons that send out the list of purchases made each day. It is sent in the form of and excel file. The drop shippers then in return send back and excel file that states which orders have been shipped. The customers can login into his site and view the status of their order and also track the order once it is shipped.

I have been working a lot lately on LeeWai, and I’m getting pretty burned out trying to juggle doing all the work and also trying to expand the business. I think that if I were to make it so that my clients can talk to my designers and coders directly through my site that I could focus my attention on other areas of the business. This could in turn make me more money. Plus it just isn’t as fun when you are a slave to it as it is when you can perform the tasks at your leisure.

The only conflict I am running into is how to actually go about making this work. I am on a tight budget, and cannot do the code myself, so I need to think basic. Something I can use for every service that I offer, and is also very easy for my clients.

Please help!! haha if you know of how I might be able to go about this, for cheap, I would love to hear some feed back.

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12
Oct

Whats going on?

I’m trying to make sure I blog as much as possible, but sometimes it is a little difficult. Such as lately, I came down with a cold that knocked me right outta the sky. It was so bad that I couldn’t even talk for about four days. My whole family got it but I got the blunt end of it. Anyways, besides that I have just been trying to catch up on all the work I have going on. I just picked up another new client, plus I am working on about three designs as I write this. It is a little hectic but I love it non the less. I would rather have to complain of too much to do then not enough to do.

I have also been working on expanding my portfolio. So I have been making mock up logos to show all the styles I can cover. I must say that some of them are pretty clever and look really good. Feel free to check it out for yourself http://www.leewaimedia.com/logo-work/ tell me what you think and if you would like some logo work I am offering a bunch of discounts and specials right now.

Lets see, besides that I have decided to add a free website audit option on leewai, I figure I need to add as much interaction as possible. I will give advice and help with SEO ideas, site layout help, and even marketing tips and techniques. I feel that I can help out a lot of people by offering this so I am going to test it out and see how it does.

I have also been doing a lot of work with my buddy Robbie, we are working on some affiliate stuff and it is going pretty well. We just had a contract wrote up and are at the brink of making money with our first project. From there it will only get better and easier. I just need to get a system down so that I am as efficient s possible.

Thats all for now, be easy :)

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28
Sep

Line by line

Lately it has been very hectic in my neck of the woods. I have been trying to focus as much attention as possible to about five different projects (including school). It is difficult no doubt, but I am managing.

Recently my blog URL expired and I had no idea because it was purchased on a friends account and they never sent me any notice. Haha it was a depressing moment in time when I sat down to blog and had no live site. I went into panic trying to figure out how to get it back ASAP. After a few hours of frustration I remembered that Jon had purchase the domain name, so I gave him a jingle and it was a quick fix.

I have also been working on LeeWai, I finally got the new design done. Now I am just adding some more sub pages and a few unique applications. Hopefully my conversions will increase after all this hard work. Also I am also going to be investing in another round of SEO for a few of my sites that I have been letting sit and do nothing (not a wise idea).

But as of right now, today, I have dedicated to writing. I have a compare and contrast paper due tonight in English. So I figured to get warmed up for this task I would write a blog post (to kinda get the juices flowing). The subject of my paper is going to be comparing Motto Cross, to BMX or Bicycle Motto Cross. My reason for choosing this topic is because I have had excessive experience with BMX. I raced for roughly ten years, before I was forced to retire due to my bike getting stolen. Just to clarify, the bike was worth about $2,500, which is why I didn’t just hop up and purchase another one. The only conflict I am running into is the fact that I don’t know jack about Motto Cross really, I have watched it on TV but thats about it. I do need a source however, so I will make sure it is a source that is familiar with Motto Cross. I’m going to focus on the differences as apposed to the similarities. The reason is because I have always been mistaken as a motorcycle rider when I tell people I race BMX I guess it got to the point of irritation so I would always tell people how different and better BMX is then MX.

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15
Sep

The Content Network

So my marketing experience and knowledge basically revolve around search marketing. Content marketing is a whole other ball game. If you are into adwords at all then it will be a little more familiar to you, me on the other hand has no adwords experience as of now so I can see myself having a tougher time grasping the concept. Nevertheless I’m going to learn how it works and I am going to make money off it haha.

It consists of some of the basic fundamentals that search marketing has, such as keyword research, that is the biggest and most important step for either form of marketing. If you do not have good keywords then you basically have nothing. The only big difference that I noticed was that you will be using a lot more keywords and keyword groups with the content network. basically you can either choose between a keyword group a website URL list, or a list of negative sites or (sites that you do not want your site to appear e.g. Myspace). You can use tools such as textant to help you configure these big keyword groups.

One great benefit that the Content Network has is that the links are cheaper than they are for PPC. As far as what I have heard they are just about as profitable if not more in some cases (every niche is different completely).

You have two choices as far as how your add can appear, either as a text add or as an image banner. It is said that most people now days are “banner blind” as they call it or just simply pay no attention to a banner whatsoever. You can also get sneaky and make your image banner appear to be a text link but that will take some creativity on your part.

All in all it seems like a legitimate way to market your business with Google, cant wait to give it a whirl. Sorry if this post isn’t the best , I know I’m forgetting a lot, feel free to add to it. :)

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9
Sep

Get Organized!

As a small business owner I never could have imagined all the hassles and struggles would be this overwhelming. I mean I didn’t come into this blind by no means, I totally understood that I was about to take on the world. Still its simply more than I can fit on my plate.

With some many things to do from day to day. And so many things that I have yet to do, or even think of doing, it is hard to stay focused and organized. If you ask me they fall hand in hand. If you are not organized then you cannot keep your focus. I find myself everyday starting one project and then transferring my attention elsewhere when I think of anything I need to get done. Then I get absolutely nothing done because I waisted all my time transferring from job to job.

I have also found that it is easer to get something done if you stick with it because your mind picks up on it and you start to get a familiarity with what you are doing. When I switch jobs I feel like I just get into my groove and then I do something new and have to try to get back into it. I do this again and again and its exhausting.

The simple fix to this for me was a day planner! I am the kind of person that needs to write the days tasks down so I an constantly revert back to them for reference. I also think of new things that need to be done and I write them done so they don’t slip my mind. This might not be all it takes for you but hey, its definitely a start! So take it from me and get organized, so you can really get stuff done!!!!!!

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