It’s time for another poll here at Young Entrepreneur!

This month our question is: What Was The Best Thing You’ve Ever Done For Your Website?

If you’re a regular reader you would have noticed that the blog has been given a significant facelift today and it’s already made a big difference on how I write and manage the posts.

What is the best thing that you’ve ever done? Was it a design face lift? Hiring a SEO company? Starting a social media campaign?

I would love to hear your thoughts so we can put together a comprehensive list of ideas and suggestions for those entrepreneurs who are starting up!

You can cast your vote by commenting below!

Here is a list of our previous poll results:

• How Do You Stay Motivated?
• Who Is Your Business Role Model?
• What is the best business advice you’ve ever received?
• Best Way For A Startup To Earn Revenue?
• Top Tools for Entrepreneurs
• When Is It Time to Go Full-Time?
  
• The 8 Best Ways To Raise Capital
• The Top 20 Startup Mistakes
  
• Top The 21 Celebrity Entrepreneurs
• Why Young Entrepreneur Start Businesses

Evan Carmichael

Usually on Thursdays I post about Internet marketing and give search engine optimization advice to our Young Entrepreneur blog readers.

Today I’m excited to talk about a new layout for our own blog that will be launched tomorrow!

Young Entrepreneur founder Adam Toren has been working hard with the YE development team to create a fantastic new layout that is slick, easy to navigate, and more user-friendly.

It’s the first redesign since I’ve been involved in the blog and it’s already made a big difference for me. Part of the switch has been to upgrade our WordPress to version 2.7 which has been a dream to use compared to version we used to be on – thanks Adam!

What To Look For In The New Template

Here are a few of my favorite features in the new template:

• The main categories like Entrepreneur University and our Entrepreneur Polls are listed across the top which  allows for easy access to them.
• We’ve switched from a three column layout to a two column one at the top of the blog which makes the right side look less cluttered
• We’ve opened up a few new and visible ad spots for any readers who want to gain extra exposure to our entrepreneur community (hint hint – contact us to learn more about ad rates)
• The right sidebar will showcase some of the most Popular posts, Latest posts, and Recent comments for quick access
• The overall look and feel is also quite different and more spacious

I hope you enjoy the new blog template and look forward to your comments tomorrow!

Yanik Silver and Monster Garage’s Jesse James in front of Jesse’s muddy dune buggy during a 6 day ‘business trip’ to the Baja in Mexico.  Yanik brought in Jesse to teach CEOs and other members of Maverick Business Adventures.

YE co-founder Adam Toren recently interviewed Yanik Silver. Here is the full interview:

He is the only person in history to build three Fortune 1000 companies.

He is the only person to have developed six NYSE-listed companies.

And, he is the only person to ever own three professional sports teams in a single market.

His name is Wayne Huizenga, and he is one of the most successful entrepreneurs of modern times.

In 1992, Huizenga was awarded the Horatio Alger award, given to Americans who have achieved great success by overcoming adversity.

He has also been named five times Financial World Magazine’s CEO of the Year.

Huizenga has been at the top of his game for some time now, but just how did he get there?

“My father always said working for somebody else never amounted to anything. You have to be an entrepreneur.

We’re looking for something where we can make something happen: an industry where the competition is asleep, hasn’t taken advantage. It’s going to be hard to find another Blockbuster, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have three good companies growing. The point is, we’re going to be busy.

I don’t want to be just a voice on the phone. I have to get to know these guys face-to-face and develop a sincere relationship. That way, if we run into problems in a deal, it doesn’t get adversarial. We trust each other and have the confidence we can work things out.

I don’t think we are unique, we’re certainly not smarter than the next guy. So the only thing I can think of that we might do a little differently than some people is we work harder and when we focus in on something we are consumed by it. It becomes a passion.

I busted my butt all my life building companies. I have a friend who’s my age, and the last thing we say when we hang up is QTR – quality time remaining. I don’t know how many years I’ll be able to play golf, so I’m going to enjoy every minutes of this.

Overcoming hardships and working around and through their obstacles to achieve an education is what I call a true success. People are what determine your success in the future. Surround yourself with good people and you won’t fail.

I really would not change anything. Have a passion for what you do, work hard, have great people with good personalities, enjoy the ride.”

Which Famous Entrepreneur would you like to see profiled? Leave a comment below and we might take you up on your idea!

Evan Carmichael

The results are in from our latest YoungEntrepreneur.com poll! This time we asked you “How Do You Stay Motivated?” and you responded with some great answers.

The top seven results are:

#1) Read Inspirational Material

“Read blogs like TechCrunch, VentureBeat, Mashable, ReadWriteWeb and get myself excited over others success. I would tell myself “I can be like that person too and I want to be like him/her” Read books like “The Art of the Start” by Guy Kawasaki, “The Secret” by Rhonda Byrne.”

“I will read a couple of my favorite paragraphs from “Think and Grow Rich”, a couple of my favorite scenes from “The Secret” and review my goal cards. This usually gives me a spurt of energy and much needed boosts during more challenging days.”

“Read about success stories in my field in business trade magazines etc.”

“Reading forums like this and seeing that people really can be successful using internet marketing”

#2) Passion / Strength From Within

“I think what keeps me motivated is the strength from within, knowing you are doing what you really are passionate about. I do connect with other blogs but in the end I just write what I feel is very inspirational to me without worrying what others think.”

“Many of the motivational ideas you listed are very good, but the primary motivator is passion…passion to the point of obsession. If you start a business you are obsessed about, motivation is never an issue. By obsession, I mean you want to do something so strongly, you cannot resist it—you are powerless to do anything else. Think Thomas Edison, Madame Curie, Jobs and Wozniak, Mark Johnson, and a host of others. With this type of passion, you do not need motivational tricks to keep you going. You will keep moving forward regardless of external conditions. If you start a business without passion, without feeling obsessed by your business idea, you will likely fail in today’s business environment.”

“I am always motivated because i LOVE my job.”

#3) Picture The Future

“Picture my future if I continue to work for someone for the next 10~20 years. I will NOT have the freedom to decide when I wake up, when I go to lunch, when I get off work, when I get a vacation, how much money I make, where I live. Most importantly, I do NOT get to decide how big my computer monitor is. ook at my current financial situation and tell myself “this is not the way I want to live my life for the next 10~20 years””

“When I sit in front of my computer for brainstorming sessions, each page on Word starts with the date, focus, and a picture of something I want to work for…house, car, boat, trip, etc.”

“Visualize the end results”

#4) Review Your Vision / Goals

“I stay motivated in a couple of ways. Reviewing my vision, revising my business plan and setting new goals always gives me the push that I need to continue on my journey as an entrepreneur.”

“What keeps me inspired is that I see the reaching. I know what I’m shooting for, and I know that I’m going to have to take certain steps to get there. I visualize myself as already having achieved my goal(s). And I know that when I do reach my goals, that is by no means the end. I’ll just go for even higher goals.”

#5) Listen to Inspirational Material

“Listen to podcasts about starting a startup. I’m a loyal listener to Andrew Warner’s Mixergy interviews. He does great interview with people who have already been through the trenches. Andrew does a good job at controlling the pace of the interview and tries to get as much information as possible for the listeners. Check it out at blog.mixergy.com”

“I turn off the news, listen to inspiring music and record insights into my voice recorder. This allows my thoughts to start flowing. It makes it easier to see the millions of things that went right today in the world.”

#6) Surround Yourself With Positive / Accomplished People

“Surrounding myself with positive people or consulting my fiancee also helps a lot when I doubt myself.”

“I surround myself with people who are more successful them me. I make sure to network with people who have done what I want to do. I may never reach their level of success but it helps to see that it is possible.”

#7) Look For Small Measures Of Success

“When in the early stages of starting a business, I keep myself motivated by looking for other measures of success other than profits (ie: hits on a website, learning something new, etc…).”

“Like some of the other guys mentioned, I use small incremental targets.. and I take care to give myself a mental pat on the back. When I first started out a few years ago I didn’t do this… used to shoot for the horizon and chastize myself for not making it. This made it very hard to stay focussed and motivated in the long term… I often felt like I was bipolar… flitting from one home run attempt to the next, without a lot of real progress. I’ve learned that it is far better to be balanced and positive, then to push for extreme and unlikely outcomes (although less exciting)”

Rounding out the rest of the motivation strategies are:
A Sense Of Responsibility

“To put it very simply, the responsibility I have to my company and the employees who depend on me for my leadership. I absolutely have to believe that today will be a better day.”

Get Perspective

“Getting other perspectives on how to develop my ideas also helps as well. Recently, my wife helped me pull together some of my coaching programs. I was resistant at first, but in the end, the process totally energized me.”

Thinking About The Unlimited Possibility

“The unlimited possibility of it all is what keeps me going. Nothing gets me more excited than watching an idea I’ve had have an effect on the business. The first time I made $20 from a website I was totally hooked. If I can make $20 I can make $200 then $2000 and on and on.”

Have “Motivational Days”

“I’ll actually have a “motivational” day every couple weeks. I’ll stop by the local Porsche dealer, watch some of my favorite motivational movies (Boiler Room), Buy a new suit or power tie, etc.”

Think About Successful Entrepreneurs

“I think about those successful entrepreneurs who have obtained enormous successes just by going out and doing it. They are proof that anything is possible as long as you believe in it.”

Family
“My kids keep me motivated, and the thought of one day being able to make money on my own without a gosh danginit boss telling me what to do and when to do it and how to do it”

Working On And Not In A Business

“Good list, one other thing that helps are days dedicated to working on, not in, the business… where you actually get somewhere. In two words… “efficient productivity” gets me fired up… a good cycle really.”

Meditation

“Living a good life and being healthy will make it far easier to stay focussed and motivated. Meditation is a fantastic way to keep your mind focussed! Find a meditation technique that you like and then do it!”

Think About Your Daily Needs

“Always thinking of daily needs will be the best motivation.”

Financial Instability

“Experiencing the struggle of financial instability growing up is the most motivating factor in my life. When you come from relative poverty and are able to educate yourself and work hard while maintaining honesty and integrity, then along with the gains of success come the drive to further increase your potential exponentially.”

Thank you everyone for the great feedback! We’ll continue with a brand new Entrepreneur Poll next week!

Evan Carmichael

It’s time for another SEO Advice post! Last month, I offered free SEO advice to CADrite. I’m going to continue my SEO Advice series today by helping out another YoungEntrepreneur.com blog reader Ariane from FreshPow!.

Ariane – http://www.freshpow.ca

Hi Evan,

I was wondering if you could take a look at our site http://freshpow.ca for your series of SEO Advice.

Our monthly traffic has hit 2000 and we seem to be getting a variety of visitors but our sales are not really on par with our traffic.

Is there a way that we could change that – a way that we may be overlooking or just simply not doing?

Your help would be super appreciated!!!

Thanks,

Ariane

My Recommendations

1) Where Is The Traffic Coming From?

Congrats on getting 2,000 visitors per month to the site! I see that you’re active on Facebook, Twitter, and other social networking sites. Social networking traffic is notoriously known for not converting into sales – that’s why advertising rates for social networking sites are plummeting. Traffic from search engines, however, tend to convert much better because people are searching for a solution to a problem as opposed to trying to kill some time by browsing through Facebook. Focus on building more search traffic to increase your conversions.

2) How Do I Sign Up?

The homepage is really a blog, which is great for generating pages that Google will index, but you focus so much on your twitter posts and updating your blog with great content that you’ve left out the most important part for a corporate website – asking for the sale! The homepage should showcase the great work that you’re doing with nice visuals as well as the clients you have and their testimonials. Tell me a little about the benefits of working with you and why I should contact you or learn more about your services. It’s great to build a following but you need to convert that audience into customers if you want to run a business from the website.

3) Promote Your Own Products First

The main blog post that I see on the homepage is a review about customizing your headphones to match your equipment (REVIEW: Match your headphones to your equipment with iFrogz). This could be a good post for your site, except for the fact that at the end of it tell people to go to the iFrogz website if they want to buy the product. If it’s not your product and you’re not making money from it, don’t put it as the first thing people read when they come to your site. I’m sure iFrogz is going to be happy with you but it won’t help your business grow.

Good luck Ariane!

Readers, what do you think about FreshPow!?

To learn more about how to get SEO tips for your website please read my post: Need SEO Advice? Submit Your Site!

This post comes thanks to YE co-founder Adam Toren.

“My life has been a total accident – a very happy wonderful accident that I didn’t and couldn’t have planned.”

The fact that Rachael Ray did not know where she was going makes where she wound up today all the more impressive. Despite never working at a five-star restaurant, attending a single cooking class, or training under a revered chef, Ray has made a name for herself as one of the industry’s most successful cooks.

She is one of Food Network television’s most popular hosts, the author of numerous bestselling cookbooks, and editor-in-chief of her own magazine. More recently, Ray stepped out even farther into the limelight with her own hour-long daytime talk show, “Rachael Ray”.

So, if not from a culinary institute, where did this daytime diva get the cooking know-how that has taken her on a meteoric rise to fame?

“My life has been a total accident – a very happy wonderful accident that I didn’t and couldn’t have planned I was surrounded by all different styles of cooking and worked in the food service industry in just about every capacity you can imagine.

So I went around and asked all of my customers, ‘Why do you not cook? Why are you not buying the groceries?’ And everybody said the same thing: ‘I have no time, and it’s easier to cook the prepared meals.’

I was raised in a household that taught us that everybody has the right to have a lot of fun.

When I first heard from the Food Network, I told them that I was beer in a bottle and they are champagne. I’m too loud one day and giggle too much the next, or flub the intro, but what I do is not about technique. I need a story to go with the burger. People want to relax a little.

I did 30 Minute Meals for five years on local television, and I earned nothing the first two years. Then I earned $50 a segment. I spent more than that on gas and groceries, but I really enjoyed making the show and I loved going to a viewer’s house each week. I knew I enjoyed it, so I stuck with it even though it cost me.

My rule is that whenever I have off 36 hours or more, I go to my home upstate. I like being home. I like a cozy life. The sky is darker, the stars are brighter, and things make more sense to me when I’m in the middle of the woods.

I don’t want anything to separate me from the viewers. I open the cans, I chop the onions myself, and I wear street clothes. I don’t want people to look at what I do and think that they can’t do that too. It’s extremely important.

That’s why I don’t wear a chef’s coat. I don’t even wear an apron. At home, I wipe my hands on my coat, I burn my fingers, and it doesn’t look perfect. But it is my food. It’s the real deal….I’m happy that way.

Decide what it is that you are and then stay true to that thing. My brand is based very much on how I live my day-to-day life.”

Evan Carmichael

Recently, Jason Cohen commented in an Entrepreneur University post about the important of negotiating everything in order to get a better deal from suppliers during the recession. Therefore in response, this week’s Entrepreneur University comes thanks to Colly Graham. Colly brings thirty years of practical experience of selling and his ability to empathize with sales people and establish immediate rapport and credibility as a trainer.

Today Colly discusses how you can learn to be an effective negotiator:

“Buyers and sellers alike need to sharpen their negotiating skills.

Each needs a set of strategies to deal with competition and competitive pricing in today’s marketplace.Sales people fall into the trap of the buyer telling them they will have to match their competitor’s price in order to get the business. Moreover, buyers need to ensure that they are negotiating the most competitive price at the quality and service their company demands.

What is Negotiation?

Negotiation occurs when someone else has what you want and you are prepared to bargain for it – and vice versa.

Basic Skills for Negotiators

* Influence – Necessity, desire, competition and time consider where the balance of influence lies misuse of influence causes resistance

* Information – Incorrect information is worse than no information at all what do you need to know about the other side that will be useful? What is the best way of finding out? Act like a detective to discover information

* Credibility – Make yourself believable, don’t take your own credibility for granted

* Judgment – The ability to strike a balance between gaining advantages and reaching compromises – patience keep things in perspective

“What Makes a Good Negotiator?

Negotiation is one of the most difficult tasks a person faces. It requires a number of qualities not usually found in business. Negotiation requires good business judgment and an understanding of human nature.

1. Stable people, able to negotiate with him or her self and see the funny side. Does not have a need to be liked.

2. A willingness to plan, know the product, the rules and the alternatives. Probe and check information

3. Good business judgment.

4. Be able to tolerate conflict and ambiguity

5. Commit to high goals and take risks to achieve these goals

6. Have patience

7. Get involved on a personal and business level

8. Have integrity

9. Be willing to listen with an open-mind

10. Be able to see the hidden personal issue

Today prospects and customers are forcing us to compete as a commodity with severe pricing pressures and negotiating. “Your price is too high” is a common cry! We need to develop knowledge and skills to effectively negotiate the sale.”

Is there a topic you would like to learn more about for the next Entrepreneur University? Leave a comment below and we’ll try to find an expert to discuss your topic!

Evan Carmichael