DAY 140

Update: Friday, 16-Sep-2005 11:07 PM

The focus, all week has been http://www.businesscreditbuilding.com. I have had problems getting the data inputted, so I broke down the member area into several steps and kept at it. I think by the end of the week end or at least by the end of the month I will charge for the memberships.

I have decided on a $49.95, one-time, Membership fee as I see me updating and working with the site on a regular basis as part of the network that I envision.

So, what has taken this long to complete? Research. Marketing tools, products that I am using... It all takes time.

I work on a part of it, and I grab some lunch and before you know it the days gone. It has been like that for two months working on the site.

Since I don't have any staff support, I have had to re-learn, test and deploy several aspects of the site myself. Fortunately, much of the Internet applications have evolved to a state that someone like myself who is dangerously close to "hurting oneself" while working on servers can go about getting tasks done.

For example, this week there has been the issue of installing a merchant account to accept VISA, Mastercard, Discover and American Express credit cards. At first I wanted to work with Paypal, but their merchant statement says that I cannot run a 2-tier affiliate programs. So, I ventured out and got a merchant account that is free basically for the first 30 days. This was with Card Service International.

I then had the challenge of getting the system working with a shopping cart. I ended up getting a shopping cart that did all the communication between the businesscreditbuilding site and the merchant account's payment gateway.

To add to the challenge, the communication has to be encrypted. However, that used to be full programming job just a few years ago. Now, thanks to the hosting interface by PLESK, I can enter the admin area and setup a secure certificate (128-bit SSL) encryption in just a minute or two. That was done and I was ready to get the shopping cart going.

Once again, it was the end of the day and week.

Now I have to postpone the remaining tasks to next week. They include:

1. Completing the installation of the shopping cart.
2. Setup of all products and services.
3. Adding more data to the member area.
4. Making sure that all the pages at businesscreditbuilding.com work.

Then I can start advertising and getting the show on the road.

It's been a long haul to get to this point, but I am not going to turn back now that things are shaping up and I have already seen that many people are going to count on me to help build their business credit.

I have yet to do any advertising for www.businesscreditbuilding.com and already several people have signed up for the membership, which I just gave away free.

So, things are going along. Not as fast as I'd like. However, since I have to wear the hats of business developer, writer, software guru, tester, accountant and day job guy with the investment work that I have --it's all a handful and I need to keep moving, at any pace that I can or things will just crumble.

However, it's not a stressful situation because I run the show. The lack of support is actually good. I had a devil of a time working with the offshore staff. Never again, in that capacity. Not without a local manager who will manage such an operation. In trying to run things from here, I basically ran into the ground and ran 'mad'.

Now, I happy about the situation. Sure there are problems such as software that does not work or links that I need to make sure that work, but again, I have to do it. I can do it. I am responsible. I will get the items done.

Let me reflect on some other issues. I spent a bit of the day running an experiment. I noticed that when I search Google, some of the organic search results (these are the free results that show up) are from Google's own "Questions & Answer" area.

So, as part of my weekly routine I have noted to go to http://answers.google.com/answers/ >> and search 'business credit' and 'business credit building' and then proceeding to comment on the questions that people pose. The idea is that when the key words that I am interested in are searched at google.com, then the comments that I posted will show up in the results. And since google.com likes it's own areas, it will post my comment and the link to it, I hope, on the first page.

This is a test that I conducted and I'll watch this in the coming weeks to see what happens. My goal is to become a "business credit building *expert*" and in the process help other attain the same!

Bit by bit I see that people are starting to find the site, and my goal with all of this is to get about 100 sales a month. I also calculated that I offer a basic product, let's say for $49.95 and then some up-sell products -one for around $99 and another for $299.

The idea was to generate about 80% sales of the basic, around 15% for the mid item and the last 5% with the latter. The question is what number of visitors will I have to motivate to visit the site in order to get that sales goals achieved.

So far, in all my businesses on the Internet and many offline business in my late 20's and early 30's, the money flowed out, but the ROI (return on investment) on advertising funds has been low. On this occasion my goal is to price the membership at the low end, get as many people as I can by generic means to the site and then buy the traffic I need from several places.

If it all goes well, I hope to take my $50 ad budget and turn it into $250, and then in to $500 and so on until I have some money to work with in the investment area.

Easy said... doing it is another matter as I very well know.

But, I have to try. I have to do it. I have to give it a shot. Only then will I know IF I truly had/have a good idea and if that idea will benefit other greatly. After all, I believe the more I help others with their business credit issues, then the more success I will have. That is a proven formula and more importantly it is one that I hope I can enjoy.

With that thought, hope you have another great weekend. Enjoy. Sam.

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