Art Of Money

Passive Income Tips - Edition #9

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1.) Product of the Week - Carbonite.com
2.) Jon’s Business Update
3.) Website Spotlight - ThisIsBroken.com

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Product of the Week
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I discovered another online backup system this week that overcomes
the big problem of online back up for me. Size / $. Carbonite is $5
per month for what looks like up to 40G or more. Proper backup is
essential and up until now I’ve actually carried a USB drive around
with me that has my files on it, just in case my house burns down or
my computers are stolen while I’m out of the house.

Take the computers, but I don’t want to lose the BUSINESS too.

“Carbonite online backup software is always looking for new data on
your PC. The moment you add or modify files, Carbonite swings into
action to back up your data.”

I’ll be trying it out this week…the recommendation is based solely
on the idea that everyone has to think about what my wife calls
“worst case scenario” and to be able to recover from it.

http://artofmoney.org/tools/carbonite/

They even have fun little animated tutorials to show you how it
works.

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Jon’s Business Update
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It was a very quiet week so I decided, inspired by reading
CopyBlogger’s articles about telling stories, to tell you a story for
this week’s newsletter.

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The Tale of Two Jons
==================

Do you believe in destiny? I’m not talking about the capital “D” type
destiny like “He was Destined to become President” kind of stuff.

More like a type of destiny that puts the same opportunity in front
of you until you finally get it. That’s what the tale of two Jons is
all about.

Jon number one is 10-Years-Ago-Jon and Jon number 2 is
Present-Day-Jon and just this week I had a haunting case of deja vu
that inspired this tale.

You are already somewhat familiar with Jon number two the Internet
business owner battling the forces of SEO, Info Products and short
tempered mentors to try and conquer the forces of the shrinking bank
account and underfunded future.

===============
10 Years Ago Jon
===============

10-Years-Ago-Jon was also a business owner. It was a woodworking
business that was in the right place at the right time.
10-Years-Ago-Jon’s business was one of the first on the planet to
replace standard issue blah brown photo frames with funky, cool and
hip photo frames.

10-Years-Ago-Jon was young and naive with zero sense of business. He
was a one man show. Being an innovator all of a sudden he had BIG
companies asking to place orders for his products in multiples that
were 10 times his annual production.

10-Years-Ago-Jon didn’t understand the forces that were at work and
that he could have borrowed money and set up a “real” business and
taken the orders. Instead, he didn’t see a way to fulfill the orders
[each of them representing 6 months work at his maximum, which was
already killing him] so he declined the jackpot orders.

He didn’t know that difference between good debt and bad debt: he
thought all debt was bad!

Shortly after companies like Umbra and IKEA jumped all over the
concepts and products remarkably similar could be found everywhere
for a fraction of the price than 10-Years-Ago-Jon was charging.

Now 10-Years-Ago-Jon and his company survived and continued to do
well, by the modest standards that 10-Years-Ago-Jon defined for
himself…so let your tears be few.

==============
Present Day Jon
==============

Remarkably, Present-Day-Jon finds himself having “deja vu all over
again.” This time will Present-Day-Jon build a business system that
is scalable and capable of continuous improvement or will he settle
for having a job [with a lunatic as a boss - himself]?

Why wouldn’t he?

It seems that this step is different than all else that faces an
entreprenuer. While you can follow how to guides to get from point A
to point B for a lot of things, moving from self-employed or job
mentality to “real business” is like walking a burning tight-rope to
cross a cavern.

You either do it and follow through to the end or don’t step off the
ledge.

It requires a level of dedication and commitment that can lead to
Present-Day-Jon getting rich, or ending up bankrupt. That’s my
current perception anyways.

Last time 10-Years-Ago-Jon chose not to step off the ledge.

This time it’s different as there really isn’t a choice.
Present-Day-Jon knows that security is not what he loves [and even
more than that it is an illusion] and that the only thing to do is to
build those business systems and to start outsourcing tasks to enable
him to do more of what he is good at.

And if that means spending money, then so be it.

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Can Our Hero Get it Right This Time?
=====================================

Will he take the risk and grow or be revising this story to “A Tale
of 3 Jons” ten years from now?

Competition is coming. 5 years ago is was routine for people to throw
up a web site and rank well for great keywords. You could make a
killing just slapping a datafeed onto an affiliate site. Now adays,
you can only hope to grab a little “long tale” traffic from these
methods.

Information products are just starting to take off now and as they
get more popular [my prediction is that they will explode in the next
year or two] big companies will take notice and move in and produce
them.

Think Wal*Mart for info products.

At this point there is no such player in the game, but there will be
and if Present-Day-Jon wants to continue to grow his business it
better have a competitive advantage and be a scalable and well
systematized operation, that will allow him to have an advantage over
a better funded competitor.

That can’t happen if wants to stay on the ledge and continue to do
everything himself.

Thanks for reading,

Present-Day-Jon

Want to say hi, or make a comment?

…just hit reply.

http://www.ArtOfMoney.org/
http://www.RealBlogVideos.com/

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Website Spotlight
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A collection of broken signs and amusing juxtapositions on and off
line.

“A project to make businesses more aware of their
customer experience, and how to fix it.”

Very funny too: http://www.thisisbroken.com