Sherry Borzo of DSM Buzz is the host of an interview podcast show called Entrepreneur People, on BlogTalkRadio.com.  She broadcasts from Des Moines, Iowa in the American Midwest.  

Sherry graciously asked me to be on her show as a guest earlier this week.  She is the nicest person — you can just feel her warmth and friendliness through the audio.  She made me feel at ease instantly, the mark of a good interviewer.

Sherry wanted to talk about some of my experiences building this online business called Small Business Trends.  Please tune in and support Sherry’s show, as we discuss such points as:

• Strategy for building an online business while you consult or freelance on the side: Yes, it is a lot of work to hold down two jobs. But if you are bootstrapping a business startup, farming out your services is one of the best ways to get funding. You fund your fledgling business from the money you make in freelancing or consulting. Take your earnings from being a freelancer and plow them into the business, dollar by dollar, month by month. Invest in marketing, a better site design, content creation, and improved site features, as you bring in more money. We all have something we can offer as a freelancer or as a service provider if we look hard enough — writing, software programming, project management, graphics design, consulting. Find whatever that is. Do that while you build your business in the evenings and on weekends using the money you earn from freelancing.

• Don’t give up too soon as an entrepreneur: It takes most people at least a year, sometimes two, to make meaningful money from an advertising-based site. There is a ramp-up period while you build a brand, get pages indexed in the search engines, and build enough traffic to generate meaningful advertising income. If you’re bootstrapping it tends to take more time, because you never have enough money to do things as soon as you’d like. Many entrepreneurs underestimate the time and give up too soon. (Remember that what you see here today on Small Business Trends is the result of 4 years.) Your job as an entrepreneur is to find alternate earnings so that you can stick with it!

There is much much more, too.  Listen to the entire podcast — it’s a little under 30 minutes. You can click the red and yellow arrow below to hear it.

PS, a little trivia:  I was speaking from my hotel room in San Diego.  If you listen closely you can hear housekeeping rapping on the door in the background. 

 Email This Post |  Print This Post