Okay, here’s the deal.

A few months ago, after spending a very long time trying to find the answers to all of my questions regarding making money online, I found this book.

‘How I sell Thousands of Products Using the Net’ is that rare thing, an eBook that actually delivers.

Everyone I know who is making money on the Internet has got this book, mostly because I’ve sent them a copy.

And now I want to give you a copy too.

It’s well written, by a guy who used to be a copywriter (you can tell).

It’s honest too. The book is about making money over time with hard work. Which is exactly how the Internet works.

Best of all, the book’s advice works.

I suddenly started making real money after reading it. Not millions, but real income. Dependable income.

No other book has come close, and no other book has delivered like this one.

I’ve never given anything away on The Smart Home Worker. Mainly because most stuff is a waste of time. And it usually costs.

This opportunity came up, and when I realised I could give it away, well…

But hey, I’ll let the book do the talking. Grab it now, for free, and within a few hours you will be sowing  the seeds of something big.

Trust me on this one.

Until next time, work smart.

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If Twitter is a great big party, then following is choosing who to hang out with.

You turn up, you find people with similar interests to yours. And then you follow them, in the expectation – or hope – that they will follow you back.

Like any social situation, the more followers – people who find you interesting or valuable – you have, the more attractive you will seem to other people. They will then in turn think about following you.

There’s a guy out there who runs a company and he has over 100,000 followers on Twitter. But some of these don’t run companies. Some are unemployed. Some are what could be referred to as ‘slackers’ even. But they follow this guy who they have nothing in common with.

Why? Because he has over 100,000 followers.

How did he do this? Well, there’s the paradox.

(Of course, it isn’t really a paradox; I kind of just labelled it that because it makes no real sense to me.)

It is a problem though, one that stumps most people. How do you get people to follow you? And more importantly, how do you get 100,000 people to follow you? A million?

Well, you don’t. You don’t get anyone to do anything. Like any form of micro blogging, interest is the thing.

Mingle

The only cast iron method that you (as a normal person and not a movie star) can deploy to boost your number of followers involves following.

That’s it. Of course, you can buy followers but that is something that large corporations do because they think in binary.

As a small business and, let’s be honest, a really nice person, you follow people that you find interesting. People who have the same life as you, or at least the same interests and business dealings.

And you do it every day or at least every two days.

Follow 50-100 people every day and I absolutely guarantee that you will become someone who gathers followers.

About 30-40% of people you follow will not follow back. That’s cool. You’re not God. Or Ashton Kutcher. So deal with that and manage your followers. Follow 50-100 a day and every now and then pare off the people who have chosen not to follow.

Why get followers?

Seth Godin will tell you that you can’t get to know more than a 1000 people. Other, lesser mortals will say that they just cannot manage thousands of relationships.

Whatever you think, there is only one reason to continuously grab followers with the method above. You will get contacts, and you will build a network of people that you are connected to.

Advice, help, business deals and even friendships will then abound.

Trust me. It works. Just don’t try and get followers any other way, even when you’re starting out.

Oh, and the answer to the question in the title? That’s easy. Find approximately one and a half million people (remember the third or so that won’t follow) with your interests and follow all of them. Should take you about a week if you don’t eat or sleep. Got that?

Good.

Until next time, work smarter.

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Greg Walsh of Live It With Less blogs about productivity and other stuff that will generally help you to organise your life. This is obviously important to homeworkers, so I asked if he would write a post for this blog. Amazingly, he agreed, so here it is. Enjoy…

Many readers of The Smart Homeworker would agree that running your own home business can be difficult at times and if your workspace is drowning in clutter as well, this will just add unnecessary stress and prevent you from working to your full potential.

As the father of three young children all under the age of 6, working full time and also studying university part time, maintaining a healthy work/life balance is like running your own small business from home.

Recently I have developed a simple goal setting system that is proving to work well with me. I select four major goals for the year. Every day I then remind myself of these four goals and assign manageable daily tasks

One of these goals is to declutter my whole house, and the very first room I selected to work on was with my study (which is basically what you would call my home office).

So, in keeping with my theme of “four”, I would like to share with you the four areas of your home office that you need to target when decluttering,

1. The Workspace:  This area includes your desk, pc, printers, or any other main peripheral that is in use. If we start with the actual desk area it is essential that it is cleared at the end of each day. One in-tray is all that’s required and this must be processed to zero by end of each day. If this cannot be done, and that’s ok, just place the next day’s work underneath so that you will eventually get to it. The idea here is that if you’re not working on it; put it back in its place, including the stationery, which will need to go back into drawers by the end of each day. Utilize your drawers but be careful not to load them with junk that you never use.
2. The Filing cabinet: With running a business the paperwork accumulated can be exhausting, but it is it all really necessary? Only you can be the judge of this. Allocate some time and go through every single file and ask yourself, do I need this? If you don’t, bin it or shred if confidential. However if you do require it, we then need to ascertain whether this is to go back into filing or can it be archived? If I can use my tax information as an example, I kept this financial year’s taxation papers and receipts in the filing cabinet and all the previous years that I still am required to keep are now transferred to the storage area in my garage. As a result of going through each of the files, cabinet space has been increased and important current information is at hand.
3. Shelving: There will always be folders, books, research texts related to your business, and as with your filing cabinet, we need to go through each item to determine its value. If you still require the item to be at hand, ensure that there is a separate space for it and preferably in some form of shelving attached to the wall or a bookcase so that they are off the desk or floor.
4. Floor space: The last stage of decluttering is to attack the floor space. Other than your waste paper basket, there should be nothing on the floor, and if there is you need to find a home for it. This also includes, zipping up all cables and having them marked so that you are not constantly pulling out and switching live plugs.

I strongly believe that a clear workspace equals a clear mind. It releases your creativity that was suffocating underneath the mounds of clutter surrounding you.

I took me a solid month to sort through my study breaking each of the four areas into achievable tasks. Now you can either go for it or set aside a weekend or spread it over a month like I did. It doesn’t matter how as long as you do it right and do it once.

Regular maintenance is the key moving forward, when it starts to build back up get back on top of it.

Free your workspace, and get on with doing great business!

Take control of your home office with Greg Walsh

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Seth Godin has agreed to an interview on The Smart Homeworker.

Knowing Seth and his ridiculous schedule (checking twitter tonight I know he is giving a talk tonight and tomorrow lunchtime) I am paranoid that he will just get too busy for the interview. Or maybe he’ll be sucked up by an alien spaceship that is travelling the galaxy looking for the sharpest minds. Or something. Whatever, I’m paranoid.

And there’s one more problem, which is what this post is about.

My Celeb Backstory…

A few months ago I met The Wiggles. For the uninformed (or the over fives) The Wiggles are an absolute legend in children’s entertainment. They sing, they dance, they are on first name terms with a dinosaur who drinks tea. They’re cool, and my son loves them.

Last summer we went to see them at Plymouth. They were awesome. My children kind of took it as one big and very real version of their DVDs. They were happy.

Then we met them after the show. And the strangest thing happened. I felt this kind of euphoria, this kind of numbness.

Then I realised what was going on. I was starstruck.

The Wiggles are just cool. They are cool and famous. Which leads us to Seth.

The Godin

He’s cool and famous too. I took a chance last year and actually emailed him. About a day went by and then he emailed back.

I just wanted to get to know him a little better. He is sharp, funny, and he knows a hell of a lot about marketing. Here’s a bio. 

He emailed back in response to a query about marketing. And we kept up correspondence for a little while after.

Then, as The Smart Homeworker began to turn into what it is today, I had an idea…

The Smart Homeworker Goes Smart

My aim is to have experts involved in this site. That’s why you will be reading interviews with people like Everett Bogue, and guest posts from people (like you, I hope) who have set up businesses, and so on. I just want this place to become more than me spouting on about sales and branding (although I will be doing that still).

So here’s the deal. My problem is that I cannot think of enough questions to ask Seth. And I need your help.

If you have any question you would like to ask Seth Godin about setting up in business, or marketing your business, this is your chance. I’m due to get in touch with him in a few days, so we don’t have a lot of time.

Email me your questions, or tweet me @sahailashraf

If you want Seth to help you on your journey, get in touch.

Until next time, work smart.

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The Giant Twitter Shark

It happened. I was there.

But first, some context.

One of the biggest sins you can commit as a small business twitter user is spamming the feed. You would think that was obvious, but it isn’t. The spam thing keeps on happening…

When I started out I made the same mistake every ‘newbie’ makes when it comes to twitter and business. I spent a few days literally telling people ‘what I was doing’, and then I made the fatal, Giant Twitter Shark baiting error of mentioning my company. Repeatedly.

Within a few minutes my account was suspended. I’m serious. Little old me. Twitter sent out a lovely little email accusing me of spamming their feed, and I was left out in the cold.

The Giant Twitter Shark had spat me out.

Spamming is evil…

Just glancing at my own feed right now I can see ads for all sorts of services and products. Even worse, I can see repeated requests to visit a blog or website. And right down there at the bottom of the food chain are the guys who are offering ‘automated’ wealth systems.

My fault for following ’small business’ owners? Perhaps. There are hundreds of genuine small business profesisonals out there, and just  a few scammers. But the scammers have loud mouths.

Every now and then the spam merchants hook someone, and the poor soul parts with ten, twenty, thirty dollars for a system that just can’t lose.

This is why the Giant Twitter Shark strikes. Spamming is evil.

What spamming does to your company

It makes you look bad. Very bad. The repeated blatant advertising to people who have never heard of you, met you or spoken to you reeks of bad taste and desperation. If you get a whiff of real custom and they search for you on twitter, you will lose them. No one likes a con artist. And selling something that is not real or is just not fair makes you a con artist.

People will block you. Or, if they cannot manage to do that (because you are so persistent) they will simply ignore you. And you will be wasting time and money. Your business will suffer, and the Giant Twitter Shark will swallow your business.

It will swallow your business for one reason.

Pay attention here.

If you open a twitter account for your company, chances are you will use your company name. And if you use your company name you will use it with an email address.

Twitter begins to hate you, and you will have a worthless twitter and email account to discard.

There are only so many times you can get away with a fresh email and the same company name.

Twitter doesn’t give many second chances, in other words.

How to avoid the Giant Twitter Shark

Be nice. Be normal. Point to things that people want to see. Talk to those who want to buy from your sector.

Develop relationships. Use twitter for what it was originally designed for. Communicating.

If you must mention your business/blog/site, do it once a day at the most. Less if you can.

People like companies that have confidence in what they do. It’s why Jewellery retailers like Tiffany’s still stay in business when no one can afford what they sell.

You’re gonna need a bigger boat

(Sorry Mr Spielberg)

Make your twitter strategy a long term thing. Look forward to great contacts, insights. Look forward to getting to know the people that count, whether they are customers or not.

I made my mistakes and I was nearly eaten by the Giant Twitter Shark. But I came back. I was Chief Brody.

If you want to know how I did it, subscribe.

I’ll send you a freebie report that tells you how to live a wonderful and gloriously fulfilling twitter life. Really.

Until next time, work smart.

And stay out of the water.

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