Case Study # 3 Life Experience = Formula that Pays

Mom to four, Cheryl Johnson took her real-world experience and turned it into a website. This Maryland, US, mom now shares her knowledge with the world.

 

Cheryl, tell us about your website.

 

I started www.simpledebtfreeliving.com in October 2004.

 

What kind of education and work experience did you have before building your website?

 

Associates in Early Childhood Development. (I was an) administrative assistant to Assistant Director at child care center for 12 years prior to 2003.

 

What was your motivation for starting an online business?

Lower overhead and operating expenses as compared to other possibilities was inviting due to financial limitations. It was clear to me that the Internet was a media that would prove to be essential for business success in the future.

How did you come up with your idea for a website?

Several months prior to purchasing my SBI! site, I came to the realization that I had lost control of my family’s finances. It was through my own experiences and a lot of reading and research that I learned how to get back on track. This is how I got involved in finding money saving tips, learning to budget properly, and managing debt.

In following with the Action Guide advice, I simply related to something I felt passionate and confident about. I already knew that there were lots of families and individuals making the same mistakes I had. I felt I had valuable information to offer that could maybe help others with the same problems.

How many hours per week do you work on your site?

 

I work an average of 30 to 40 hours a week.

 

How do you make money from your site?

Monetizing is an area that I am still researching and re-learning. I got carried away for a while and actually was promoting too many products. Lost my focus so to speak. I am currently re-evaluating this area and starting to focus on more relevant product marketing and aggressively marketing those products that I have reviewed and truly am passionate about.

What is your average monthly income?

I don’t have a great deal of income to boast about but I can say that my site has paid for itself in the past year. Over the past four or five months, I’ve seen steady increases in traffic, which has led to small, but encouraging, increases in sales. I do not sell my own product as of yet. I rely mainly on affiliate marketing and contextual ads. I recently was accepted into the Yahoo publisher’s beta program. Just a little over a month into it and I have earned just under $200 to date. I average about $100 per month in other affiliate income.

How long was it before you found success? And please define what “success” means to you.

Success can be elusive. It can be right before your eyes and you fail to recognize it. Many rate success monetarily. If I assessed my successes and failures in life on money alone, I would have been discouraged and given up long before now.

A few months into building my site, I finally took the advice to start writing and submitting articles as a means of developing an Internet presence. I felt success the day my writing was recognized by others as valuable and usable. When I realized that other webmasters would use my articles on their websites, I had a feeling of accomplishment and pride. That, to me, was success in my business. But, I also measure success by what I see in my children. I truly believe that they benefit from having a parent accessible to them at all times.

What convinced you to purchase SBI!?

I had researched many Internet opportunities. Most provided some good advice on how to become successful on the Internet but few provided the actual tools. I was a newbie at Internet technology. SBI! provided the tools I needed to build a website with no knowledge or experience in doing so. I soon learned that building the site was possibly the least of my worries as I discovered the many services and tech issues that SBI! took care of for webmasters.
The final decision to buy was based on the risk free guarantee. Having limited resources, I could not afford to waste money on lost causes and products that just required me to keep on buying more and more services. If SBI! was truly the “all-in-one” program it promised to be, then it seemed to be perfect for my needs. Being able to actually try it without risk said a great deal for the integrity and confidence the company had in itself. And, in fact, SBI! did prove to be an “all-in-one” service that over delivers.

How does your significant other support you in your ventures?

 

By celebrating the smallest of successes with just as much enthusiasm I do. Encouraging me to keep on going when I am discouraged and supporting my decisions.

 

Do you have advice to offer other WAHMs on eliciting support from their significant others?

Many people are skeptical of Internet business because the great “scam” artists have given it a bad name. Explaining that SBI! addresses the reality of Internet business can help. I am careful to explain each success I encounter, even though they may be small steps, in relation to what that means to my overall success.

For example, I got a very valuable incoming link not too long ago and had some articles placed on sites of established success in my field. My husband didn’t have a clue why this was important until I explained the significance. You can’t just assume that they will understand your enthusiasm and excitement over accomplishments that may seem insignificant to them. Communication is the best tool for understanding the big picture.

Also, many people have the misconception that Internet business should mean instant success. I guess it goes along with our tech revolution and instant gratification attitudes in today’s society. You need to stress that a website is like any other business. You have a business plan. No instant success claims. It will take time, patience, and hard work to be successful. This can help make the opportunity with SBI! more realistic and acceptable.

If you could go back, what would you do differently with your website(s)?

Many times I lost my focus and got sidetracked in the wrong direction. I missed some important steps in the Action Guide due to these detours and feel that I lost a lot of time because of that. Each time I got side-tracked, something I would read on the forums or elsewhere in SBI! would bring me back to reality. If I had to do it all again, I would stick to the program and stay more focused on the really important issues. I can testify that trying to rush things is not a good strategy. The way of the “tortoise” is best! I would also have the insight to plan my days better, since hindsight is 20/20, I now understand how important that is to make the most of your time.

Cheryl, how do you “do it all”?

I “do it all” much in the same ways that I did when I worked outside the home with the exception that now I have more flexibility. Working at home means being your own boss, setting your own schedule, and prioritizing your work, family, and personal needs based on daily demands. These demands can literally change daily during stressful times. For example, I found that scheduling appointments (ie. doctors) has become much less stressful given the flexibility to rearrange my work tasks to suit other needs that arise.

Over the past few decades, moms have adapted to become not only homemakers but wage earners. It has been an economic need for most families for years. Working at home offers a greater ease of managing the many tasks required of working moms. Moms are figuring out how to manage their new “double duty” lifestyles more efficiently by evolving into WAHMs. It was bound to happen sooner or later. We have been forced to basically take on two full time jobs and eventually, well you know, necessity is the mother of invention!

Do you have more pearls of wisdom to share with other mothers?

Evaluate to validate your decision to work at home. Leaving the security of a weekly paycheck is scary to say the least. My advice is to analyze what you would really be risking in taking the WAHM path. Put it in a realistic perspective.

Many moms find that they actually are not contributing a great deal of income to the family once all of the extra expense of working outside the home are subtracted. In working at home you eliminate these expenses. Some examples are child-care, auto maintenance and gas, work clothes, and the use of time saving convenience foods. Cutting back on unnecessary expenses and re-evaluating the family budget can help during the transition. You may find you are really gaining more than you're losing!

Learn to measure your accomplishments and successes in many ways. WAHMs must be careful never to measure their successes by monetary value alone. WAHMs are so much more! There is no measure for the benefits of spending more time with our children except, the result of helping them become responsible, moral, individuals who bring something of value to society.

In doing so, you yourself bring something of great value to the world. There is no greater service that anyone on the earth provides! This is a measure of success for WAHMs as much as the success of their business is. Don’t lose sight of that and you will never be discouraged.

Stay focused. The Internet is vast and informative. It can be “information overload.” It’s easy to get side tracked. I found myself doing this many times. I would start out to accomplish a certain task and get redirected to the point where I actually never achieved the initial goal. It is important to stay focused on the day’s tasks as much as possible. Make a to-do list for each day. Group similar or like tasks together in days or blocks of time. For example, do all your phone calls together, same with any filing/record keeping, link building, content research, writing, and so forth. Grouping similar tasks together is just more efficient than skipping back and forth between different types of tasks. Your time management will be much more efficient.

Be sure to acknowledge your own achievements. It’s a good idea to write down what you have accomplished on any given day. When working outside the home, we have outside influences that acknowledge our accomplishments and successes. A raise in pay or a pat on the back from a co-worker or supervisor acknowledge our achievements.

When you work at home, I think it’s important to acknowledge your own successes and accomplishments, no matter how small. If you completed the intended tasks for the day, that is truly worth patting yourself on the back. Staying focused is sometimes difficult when multi-tasking. Some of us are better at it than others. But, moms are the definition of ingenuity. We usually do find a way to “do it all.”