The experience of owning your own business is something that most Americans have the desire to do, but seem to lack something to get the job done. Either it’s money, time or even a clear idea of what type of business they might want to operate.

Whatever the reason, they’re just excuses to cover you for when you want to complain about your current job or financial situation in you life. Making excuses doesn’t do anything for you, your family or the situation you’re in at this moment. The entrepreneurs that actually go out there and make something of themselves are the ones that didn’t make excuses as to why they didn’t succeed, they just pushed themselves and got the job done.

For many years I’ve been trying to get something going to jump start my independent career decisions. I tried many things along the way and quite a few of them failed. I look at it the way Thomas Edison looked at making his invention of the light bulb. He said, “I didn’t fail 100 times when trying to make a light bulb, I just found 100 ways how NOT to make a light bulb.” His determination and positive outlook on life helped him overcome his situation and created not one, but hundreds of inventions that we still use today.

We don’t need to invent something to be successful, we just need to come up with a better mousetrap to make something for ourselves. I didn’t invent knives, air-soft guns or any of the other things I supply to my customers. I just found a way to better reach customers in my area with better prices than any other in the same region. I bring a different level of customer service that my competitors can not provide.

As for creating a business that’s right for you, that is up to you. No one knows you better than you. What are your interests? Are you more of a labor-type or someone who enjoys using your mind more? Whatever it is, you are the one who decides what you want to do. Nothing fuels a business more than the passion of the owner. Passion for what you do will take you further than anything else in the world. So what is it that you’re passionate about? What is it that you enjoy doing or being involved in that drives your passion?

In today’s economy, many Americans are out of work and quite a few have given up on looking for work all together. It’s times like these that are perfect to start your own business. Follow that passion and the dream of being independent to do what you enjoy doing. Being out of work gives you the extra time needed to focus on the different aspects of operating a business, to see if you can make a go of things. Take advantage of a bad situation and turn it into something good.

What is it that you love to do? What is it that you want in you life? How are you going to make those “wants” a reality? Go out there and make it happen. What else are you going to do? Work for someone else?

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If you’re going to try to make a living building blogs and websites on the internet you have to stay active. Creating a good website isn’t easy, but to do it multiple times is even more difficult. Bringing traffic to your site is the most time consuming part of running a site, especially in the beginning. Setting up the site to be recognized and picked up in the search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing is only one part of the puzzle. You can go ahead and pay for advertisement on other related sites or with the search engines with a program known as “pay-per-click”, but unless you have a ton of money that isn’t going to happen.

So how are you to get the traffic to turn those page loads into revenue? Social networking is probably the best way of doing it without spending your money. Social networking is exactly what is sounds like. Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and now Empire Avenue are just a few of the ones out there.

Over the last 3 years since this site was created, I’ve been trying to use this site to grow my presence on the internet. I’ve actually had better success with the social sites than using this site itself. Using the social sites is a great idea to promote your blog or website. I’ve been able to increase traffic to my other sites because of social networking.

Everyone on the internet knows about Twitter and Facebook Most bloggers heard of LinkedIn, but not many use it. As for the latest one Empire Avenue, even less know about it or use it. If you’re one of the many bloggers that don’t know about Empire, it’s time for you to check it out. The free site is designed for bloggers who want to increase their exposure on the internet. At the same time it’s more like trading stocks on Wall Street. Members buy and sell “shares” of each other based on their involvement in the social circles.

Promote your blogs and websites to others. Learn ways to improve your site to get the desired traffic you’re looking for. Share information that you’ve learned over the years to help others. All at the same time while meeting others like you doing the same thing. I joined a week ago and have already seen an improvement of traffic to my site. The more traffic you can bring to your site, it can translate into increased revenue.

I’ve found the site to be exciting and educational at the same time. Because of the fun I’m having on Empire, I’ve made it a point of being more engaged on Twitter and LinkedIn. Since being on the different social websites increases the value of your shares as well as the dividends that are paid out to your “investors”. Have a high enough dividend and you will see others wanting to invest in you and get your name out there.

If your not a member of Empire Avenue, I suggest you give it a try and if your not a blogger, so what try it out. It free.
Click here to try it out.

For anyone who has known me for any length of time would know that I have an entrepreneur spirit and mindset. I’m always looking for ways to increase my cash flow and if possible doing it with passive income.

I’ve recently started on a new business venture which is being a wholesale supplier in my area, Ocala Florida. With the unemployment rate as high as it is in the United States people are looking for ways to make money to support themselves and/or their family. I’ve been fortunate to not worry too much about having a “job”, but like I said I’m an entrepreneur and always striving for more in my life.

Becoming a wholesaler wasn’t a hard decision since my work experience mainly was in the retail/sales industry. Just because I’ve gone this route, it doesn’t mean that it’s for everyone. You have to find something that fits your knowledge and experience so you can be successful in your new venture.

The products I carry are mainly for the mom & pop convenience store/gas station industry. I supply many products that can be found in these locations, but I can supply any type of business.

If you have a business in the Ocala/Central Florida area that can make a profit from carrying items that I supply, then please e-mail me at billyakerman@yahoo.com. If you’re thinking of having a party and want to hand out party favors/goodie bags to your guests, I can help you plan something to fit around the event. We can do most of the planning over the phone,e-mail or if you like, I can come to your place of business to discuss it further.

Items I supply, but not limited to are:
Skull caps
Bandanas
Baseball caps
Cowboy hats
Knives
Sunglasses
Costume jewelery

In January of 2008, my wife and I invested time and money into a niche website coaching program with Court Tuttle. My wife had been reading his internet marketing blog for a while and when he created a coaching service, she didn’t hesitate in signing up. He worked one on one with her through a series of telephone conversations and emails over the course of a few months. Our investment was not cheap, but we made it back before the year was out.

Since then, Court and his partner Mark Butler have streamlined their coaching program into a series of videos called The Keyword Crash Course Video Series, a ten lesson, six hour course on how to start a group of profitable niche websites from scratch – everything from choosing the topics to setting up the sites to getting people to actually visit what you’ve created. They also hold webinars to share new information and answer questions.

If this sounds like something you’d be interested in, click the link below for further information.

Over the last few months Joanne and I have also started Squidoo pages to relate to each of our sites. At the time of this post I don’t have all of them to list. If you look under Joanne Greco’s list of sites to see them all.
Here are the ones that I have on record.

Finding Laptops For Sale
Oregon Real Estate
Guide To Unschooling
Making Gift Baskets
Guide To Penny Stocks
Guide To Adopting
Stock Market Guide
Tips On Saving Money
Best Laptops For College
Passive Income
Winter Fun For Families
Your Health Guide
Recipes For Kids
How To Make Money
Cell Phone Guide

We also run two groups. If you have a related lens, feel free to submit them to the either group.
All About Making Money
Technology Lens

Happy New Year to everyone. It’s now 2009 and I’m looking forward to great and profitable year. Joanne and I are working on over 20 new sites to be added this month with many more to follow.

As you can see by the links that are in the sidebar, we have many sites that we’re operating and maintaining. We have come a long way since July when we started this journey with only four sites. Two of them are blogs while the other two are, what we refer as sniper sites. Sniper sites are geared towards targeting a keyword or phase and then adding Google Adsense to generate revenue.

This year we’re going to expand our parameters by going into marketing as well as affiliate type sites. This we give a multiple stream of income. The outlook on these look very promising going into the new year.

I would like to say to everyone that even though we don’t get to talk to each other often, I think of you daily. My fiends have been a great support for me over the last year and I look forward to your continuing support during 2009.

Thank you everyone, I love you.

In the efforts to increase the amount of websites that Joanne and I own and operate, we added a new one this week.

The site is for anyone who is looking to start investing in the stock market or any other type of investment vehicle. On the site I discuss many different things pertaining to my experiences with investments. I also talk about knowledge and the things that will help you in the stock market, real estate as well as other ways to help your money grow.

The site has been set up as what they call an affiliate program site. We have advertisements on the site from reputable companies that pay us commission for anyone who signs up with them. At the moment the programs that we offer on the site are free of charge for our readers.

The name of the site is Beginner Investing. If you’re looking for some insight and knowledge in making your money grow (or just want to help me out with signing up for a program or two), please go to our site www.beginnerinvestingguide.com

After the election of 2008 my wife and are were disappointed that Barack Hussein Obama won the election. It is in my opinion that he is not the right man for the job. He was not forth-coming and I believe that he has really shown the American people who he is.

His radical ideas are too much for this country. We do not need him to turn America into a socialistic country.

With the being said, I want to say that Joanne and I started another political site. This time it’s a forum where people who didn’t vote for Obama can go and talk about the policies that he is trying to implement while in office.

On the forum we also discuss and dissect the people he’s selecting for his administration. In the first three days that we had the site set up, we had 140 people join the forum. The name of the forum is We Did Not Vote For Obama and the URL is www.wedidnotvoteforobama.com

If you would like to be a member of the forum, please click on the link and sign up. Thank you.

During this election (2008) I was getting fed-up with all the hoopla surrounding Barack Hussein Obama that I needed to vent, but then to add to the political scene we had Senator Ted Stevens’ corruption hit the news channels. After talking to Joanne about the crap in Washington and around this beautiful country, I felt that I need a place to get my frustrations out.

The great thing about living here in the United States of America is that there is such a thing as “Freedom of speech. So to exercise my constitutional and patriotic right Joanne and I created Left and Right Politics.com, a site dedicated to informing the American people of the politicians that represent them.

If you want to know the real story and catch some commentary, click on the link and we hope it helps you with your political decisions.

One of our website that Joanne and I run is a blog that is dedicated to the stock market. The site is actually my flagship site. Every day I add content related to what happened in the stock market that day as well as informative lessons added in.

The blog is Beating The Stock Market. I started it with the man who helped me get an understanding of the markets and how to properly trade stocks. Since then he has lost interest and I’ve taken over the site by myself. I enjoy the stock market and look forward to learning something new everyday.

If you want to learn about the stock market or at least see the good work I put into the site, please click on the link and visit.

Thanks to all that help make “beating the stock market” a successful site.