Self Employed Success

Good news! Once again I’ve create mastermind groups for the self-employed for the new year. Groups will begin in late January and early February. Each group is limited to 6 people.

The Success Alliance: Mastermind Groups for the Self-employed

I have been running mastermind groups, and been a member of mastermind Groups, since 1994. They have profoundly shaped my life and my business, and I’m successful because of my participation in them.

There is synergy of energy, commitment and excitement that participants bring to a mastermind group. The Success Alliance Groups (TSA Groups) offer a combination of masterminding, peer brainstorming and support in a group setting.

The Benefits of TSA Mastermind Membership:

• Increase your own experience and confidence
• Sharpen your business and personal skills
• Create real progress in your business
• Add an instant and valuable support network
• Get honest feedback, advice and brainstorming
• Borrow on the experience and skills of the other members
• Create plans and have the group hold you accountable for fulfilling your plans and goals
• Receive critical insights into yourself
• Work ON your business, not just IN it; make the transition from being self-employed to acting like a business owner
• A sense of shared endeavor – there are others out there!
• Save 40% off the cost of private coaching and consulting, plus all the benefits of a mastermind group

Read more about joining The Success Alliance

 Application deadline is January 5.

A strange phenomena has been spreading like a virus over the past few months. In the past four weeks alone, three of my clients have told me that their website designer or virtual assistant has “disappeared.” No return phone calls, unanswered emails. Gone, gone, gone.

Kidnapping? Hardly. When the economy gets tough, many website designers and virtual assistants (small business owners themselves) simply go out of business. Some get full-time jobs in corporations, some just shut their doors. If they use a lot of sub-contractors to fulfill project demands, they find that the sub-contractor pool is drying up, so they become less responsive to your voicemails and emails.

This is a huge problem for small business owners, who rely upon their website designer or virtual assistant to maintain and upgrade their websites for them. There’s not much you can do if your website designer or VA goes out of business. But you can protect yourself and prepare yourself to move to a new website designer. You just need to have access to all your files before your website designer disappears.

When we design websites for our clients, we always give them the following information immediately after the site is complete. Use this checklist to get control of your website for the future:

1. Login information for the hosting company control panel (CP).
2. FTP login information.
3. Blog login information (this may be different than 1 and 2 above).
4. Email address login information for each email account (you may have more than one email address for your domain, such as office@domain.com or mary@domain.com or info@domain.com).
5. Other login information to auxiliary software, like membership software, forum software, content management systems, etc.
6. Logins for Google Analytics and Google Adwords, if you use either of these services.
7. A copy of all your website coding, graphic, audio, video and animation files, including the original source files for all your graphics and Flash files (typically Photoshop for graphics and Flash for animation), on CD or DVD.
8. Written confirmation that YOU own the content of the website and have the right to transfer it, edit it, submit it to Federal Copyright Office, sell it, etc.

For security purposes, if your website designer disappears, change ALL login IDs and passwords on your accounts. In addition, if you have given your website designer your credit card information, you may wish to cancel the card and have a new number re-issued.

I think we may see more of this happening in 2009. I recommend you get the above items from the person who maintains your website today so that you have full control of your website — and your internet marketing — for the future.