This week’s Entrepreneur University is a special contribution that YE Founder Adam Toren lined up from Naomi Dunford. Naomi Dunford writes for IttyBiz, a blog for entrepreneurs, freelancers, and other work-from-home types. Come by for marketing tips, small business advice, and the occasional very bad joke. Naomi shares with use her top ways to get a new business off the ground:

Starting a business is fun. Planning a business is not as fun. So how do you take your fresh idea and turn it into a viable business without sacrificing your enthusiasm in the process? Here are some ways to get started now.

Plan well, but plan quickly.

You know you need a business plan. (You do know that, don’t you?) You also know that business plans are long, scary, and mind-numbingly boring. They tend to take a lot of time, time which you might not have.

The most important part of your business plan is your SWOT analysis. This is where you identify your Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. The SWOT analysis is your new best friend. Run one on your business, on yourself, on your business partners, and on your competition. Figure out what’s helping you and what’s hurting you. Do not fall into the trap of shoving your head into the sand and thinking you have no weaknesses. Think about this. Write it down.

Since this is for your own use and doesn’t have to be prettied up for a banker’s benefit, there’s no reason this should take more than a day.

Identify your Unique Selling Proposition.

Once you know your own strengths and your competitors’ weaknesses, you can figure out what makes you different from them. This is your Unique Selling Proposition, or USP. It will be the driving force behind your marketing campaign.

What makes you unique does not have to be something earth-shattering. You don’t need to redesign the wheel. It could be as simple as actually listing your prices on your website, or offering 24 hour a day phone support. The only requirement is that it has to be something your customers actually care about. Pretty packaging on your plumbing parts is not a USP. Same-day delivery might be.

How are you going to market this thing?

You’ve identified your USP. Now you’re going to have to let people know about it. Sounds obvious? Apparently it isn’t. How many times have you been actively trying to spend your hard-earned money on a product or service, and all the companies looked the same? These companies are lazy marketers. They are telling you about all the fancy gizmos that every other competitor has, too.

You need to take your USP and beat your potential customers over the head with it. They should know why you’re different than The Other Guy before hiring you even crosses their minds. Do not make them think. Make your USP the most readily available piece of information to your customers. If you do that, the details of your marketing plan don’t matter as much. Since the thing that makes you better than your competition is now wildly obvious, whether you advertise in Text Link Ads or AdSense is just not a big deal.

Figure out your funding.

Unless your competition is Coca-Cola, the amount of money you have to start with is actually pretty unimportant. What is important is that you know how much you have, and that you allocate it wisely. Whether you have $500 or $5 million to start with, spend the most you can get away with on marketing. You need to get people to buy your product or service. Once they do, you can spend all the money you want on a new fax machine or 30-inch monitor or thicker stationery.

Start sooner rather than later.

There is a point, generally a lot earlier than most people think, when you have to stop thinking and start doing. It’s easy to sit back and ruminate on the absolute perfect way to launch your business. What’s hard is understanding that a not-bad business launched in a not-bad way makes a lot more money than an amazing business not launched at all because circumstances are not perfect. Make your service good, make it easy to buy from you, hang your shingle and prepare for a crazy ride.

Thank you to Marcel from getentrepreneurial.com for allowing us to use the article.

Evan Carmichael
YoungEntrepreneur.com Blog Manager

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Vicky Mariano - Spiritual Haze - www.SpiritualHaze.com

It’s a combination of having way too much energy, way too many thoughts, and a lot of passion to make people happy.  All of my energy and ideas needed to be focused somewhere… otherwise I just wind up irritating people, or putting my momentum and mind into things that don’t produce anything worthwhile. It’s amazing to be able to start something good as result of all of my ideas and passions.

2. What is your definition of success and has your company achieved it?

My definition of success for Spiritual Haze is to become the first really powerful community venue of its type.  This means that it builds community wealth, happiness, and togetherness through entertainment, creativity, and true expression of individualism and partnership. I’ve seen very clear signs of being able to achieve this, and now that I’m out of school and really putting 99% into my business, I’m hoping to see some real growth and heightened community involvement.

3. How important have good employees and team members been to your success?

Since before I’d even opened, I wouldn’t make any decisions without involving my team.  I intended Spiritual Haze to be a community venue, meaning it is run by everyone who is passionate about being involved.  Therefore I don’t consider business success solely my own, rather the success of everyone who has put anything into it. My team, my loyal customers, anyone with positive spirits who comes into Spiritual Haze is extremely important because they ARE Spiritual Haze.  I am just setting up the stage.

1. Make sure to do plenty of pre-planning, and get a lot of advice to make sure your venture has a good chance of success. A college program like the Innovation and Entrepreneurship program at Clark University in Worcester, MA, which I participated in, can be a great source of information and support for entrepreneurs that are just starting out. As part of the program I had several mentors and was able to use their knowledge to help shape my ideas into concrete plans.

2. Once you know you have a good chance of success, start it before someone else does, and DONT GIVE UP!  The failures and tough parts are what allow your venture to be the best it can.  Without any failures you’re actually really missing out on the better things.

3. Start a social enterprise rather than a purely profit driven venture.  It’s better for everyone; you are helping them and they will surely help you in return.

Two people…  One is my father because he is always so positive about everything and has so much faith in me.  Also because he has had very creative and positive ideas that he stuck by through the toughest challenges and never give up hope of success. I learned from him to be very strong and positive even if things don’t work out as expected.  Another is George Gendron, the Founder and Director of the Innovation and Entrepreneurship program at Clark. Honestly, without his inspiration and direct support I would have never attempted to open Spiritual Haze in Worcester, MA – which is probably one of the toughest places to open a business.

I market my business through my website, spiritualhaze.com, a group page on Facebook, the events feature on SocialWeb, and sometimes by handing out flyers around the city and to nearby colleges.  My most successful and widely-used form of marketing is free—it’s called Word of Mouth.  We make it work because we care about people who come in, and in return they show they care about us by telling all their friends to come there.

7.  How do you achieve balance in your life? Or do you?

It’s a very typical saying but its true: I work really hard and I play really hard.  Without being very social and doing a lot of fun and relaxing activities I would never have the motivation to work as hard as I do.

In 5 years I see Spiritual Haze expanded 4,000 extra sq ft, doing very well economically and socially, and running virtually by itself. I also hope to be seeing enough success to be able to open additional locations—my eye is set on California.

In 10 years I hope to see the positive influence of Spiritual Haze everywhere in Worcester, and three other locations around the country getting to that same point. If the Spiritual Haze sites are doing well, then I can focus on getting involved personally in communities and helping other social ventures grow.

I think every business owner should have at least a few exit strategies. The one I hope to put into action is to hire a manager I can trust to run everything, so I can keep the business open but pursue other interests. If that avenue is not possible, then I would consider selling the business, or at the very least sell our assets.

10. If we could introduce you to anyone, who would it be and why?

I have to say Bill Gates—because with his money and all my ideas for social enterprises we could make this country a much happier place.

Evan Carmichael
YoungEntrepreneur.com Blog Manager

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Today is an exciting day as I’m moving offices! I sold the building that I bought over three years ago to move the business closer to home. The commercial real estate market is still very tight here in Toronto but I managed to find an office for sale (I don’t believe in renting space and having money going down the drain every month).

This morning I’m off to sign the final papers to close the deal with the lawyer at 9:30. Then it’s off to the old office to pack everything up into the moving truck and then move everything into the new office this afternoon. It will be a whirlwind day as I decided to close both deal (selling old office and buying new one) as well as move all in the same day (not something I recommend highly).

My staff and family are helping me move - it’s definitely useful, as the graphic suggests, to make friends before you move as I couldn’t imagine doing it alone. Just sorting through three years worth of office stuff (junk) is time consuming enough - it’s hard to imagine how much you can accumulate over three years. Even though my business is online and we don’t have too many printed files, “stuff” still tends to pile up.

Moving closer to home will shave over an hour a day off my drive in and will definitely allow for a more productive work week. The space I’m getting is totally raw right now but it has big windows and granite floors. It’s on the third floor out of three and has a Starbucks on the ground level. I’m building out two offices and having one main open concept area. The contractor comes in on Monday (as well as the Internet company) to start working and he’ll hopefully be finished by the start of July.

I’m looking forward to the new space and writing more blog posts with my new view! Stay tuned for an exciting week of posts next week after I’ve worked my muscles moving today!

Enjoy the weekend!

Evan Carmichael
YoungEntrepreneur.com Blog Manager

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Yesterday was Day 2 of SES Toronto 2008 and I enjoyed it even more than Day 1! To start things off the Press room had Internet today which made it easy to connect and take a break from the excitement that was going on outside.

Best Workshop: SEM Toolkit

The best workshop of the conference for me was yesterday’s SEM Toolkit. The description piqued my interest:

Competitive intelligence, keyword research, customer profiling, exotic analytics, and visual mouse tracking are just some of the tricks of the trade of search marketers. Guerrilla marketers on the panel show you the favorite tools in their kits. Many are low cost or free.

My favorite presenter was Ken Jurina of Epiar. With only 15 minutes to speak Ken listed off a new tool almost every 30 seconds and gave web entrepreneurs a fantastic list of SEO-related resources to add to their arsenal. Most of them were free and could be used immediately to help you grow your online business. I’m still waiting for Ken’s slides to be added to the conference website. He warned us that it would be too much to write down ourselves and he didn’t disappoint!

Man on a Mission

I also went to today’s conference on a mission. It always helps with these conferences if you have questions and know what you’re looking for - you’ll probably find an answer! Over the past month I’ve had a peculiar issue on my site where I’m still ranking in the same prominent positions for many of my important keywords but my traffic was down. MSN and Live traffic were up. Yahoo was consistent. But Google was down. Why would my traffic numbers be down if I’m still ranking #1 or #2 for the keywords? Seeing as I had some of the best from the industry in front of me, I figured I would ask their opinion.

Up first was Ian McAnerin of McAnerin Networks Inc.. Ian McAnerin is the “SEM Resources and Advice” moderator for the High Rankings Forum, the “Search and Legal Issues” moderator for the Search Engine Watch forum, a DMOZ editor, and has been vetted by the strict standards watchdogs SEOConsultants.com and SEOPros.com directories. Ian suggested that it might be an accessibility issue. His theory was that I was still getting the clicks but perhaps the pages weren’t loading properly and therefore the hits weren’t being recorded.

Lucky for me a speaker at the next seminar was Joe Dolson, a Web Design Consultant, and an accessibility expert. On the break I checked out my site on Browsershots.org. Browsershots (one of Ken Jurina’s tool suggestions) let’s you see what your website looks like in all the various browsers. I submitted my site and it looked fine in all the browsers except Internet Explorer 4 (does anyone still use IE4???). After the session I spoke with Joe and he couldn’t think of any problems off the top of his head. His only thought was that perhaps the site had a virus or a hack attack that would prevent the page from loading. He kindly offered to look at the site in more detail if I sent him a follow up email. Thanks Joe!

Next up was the Site Clinic where entrepreneurs could submit their websites and get them reviewed by the experts. In this case the experts were: Anne Kennedy, Manager, Managing Partner, Beyond Ink, Larry Bailin, CEO, Single Throw Internet Marketing, and Jim Hedger, SEO Consultant, Metamend Search Engine Marketing. Figuring that there would be a rush of people trying to submit their sites for review I got there early, introduced myself to Larry and got my site reviewed as the second example (good thing too because we ran out of time and didn’t get to everyone). Larry and Jim made some suggestions for the usability of my site and their theory on the Google issue was that either it was just a down time and people weren’t searching for entrepreneur related articles as much or Google was doing an update and some of my pages got downranked. If it’s a cyclical issue then there is nothing else I can do but wait it out. Anne suggested opening a new section devoted to how to “make it” in tough economic times to help drive new traffic.

Worried about the Google update issue I came home and checked my rankings across multiple Google Data Centers. I’m still ranked at the top so I’m glad that’s not the problem. It may be back to the drawing board for me but I’m going to connect with the speakers again to let them get a more in depth look at the site as it’s hard to make a judgment call on the spot without having done any research on the website.

Overall it was an excellent conference. I learned a lot of new tricks, made a few new connections, and left with a renewed passion to drive even more traffic through the search engines! As the slides of the presenters become available I’ll share a few more of the insights that we learned so you can also benefit from the experience.

Evan Carmichael
YoungEntrepreneur.com Blog Manager

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Well I’m off to Day 2 of Search Engine Strategies 2008. Here is what I have planned to attend today:

10:30am-11:45am - Search User Behavior

How do searchers interact with search engines? New research is constantly revealing how searchers act. This session explores the latest studies and findings to provide tips and tactics for search marketers to consider.

12:45pm-2:00pm - SEM Toolkit: Marketers Share

Competitive intelligence, keyword research, customer profiling, exotic analytics, and visual mouse tracking are just some of the tricks of the trade of search marketers. Guerrilla marketers on the panel show you the favorite tools in their kits. Many are low cost or free.

2:30pm-3:45pm - Web 2.0 & Search Engines

An overused and amorphous term, “Web 2.0″ nonetheless encompasses an evolutionary shift from the typical web user experience of a decade ago. Some aspects of the “new” web environment are great for improving your search traffic. Other developments may lead you to make serious SEO errors. Among other things, Web 2.0 is about new user interface designs that speed up user actions with techniques such as AJAX (Asynchronous Javascript and XML), which allow users to perform operations nimbly without loading a new HTML page. This session will cover AJAX, CSS, user-generated content, and other new trends in web design and user experiences that may require a re-think of your SEO strategy.

4:00pm-5:15pm - Site Clinic

This interactive session takes volunteers from the audience and examines their websites live to provide general feedback about improving them to gain more traffic from search engines.

As usual I’ll report my findings after the day is through!

Evan Carmichael
YoungEntrepreneur.com Blog Manager

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It was a fun Day 1 at SES Toronto 2008. Here’s a recap of my day:

Check-In

The check-in process was smooth and pain free - usually check-ins at conferences involve slow lineups and poorly trained staffers manning the booths but SES Toronto did a great job - having a press pass I’m sure didn’t hurt either.

Press Room

Immediately as I entered the main floor I was shown the press room where there were tables set up so you could recharge your laptop. Coffee, pop, and water were also made available. It was a great place to go to in order to escape the noise of the main area and get some time to write. The only issue was that the free wi-fi that was set up for the conference members didn’t reach the press room so we went without a connection.

Exhibiting Area

I made it in just before the exhibiting section opened up. The exhibitor list was fairly small but it was a nice group of companies. My first stop was Microsoft who was promoting their AdCenter product. I don’t do any online advertising, and instead, make my money as an online publisher. I was told that they didn’t have a solution for publishers in Canada yet - on to the next booth.

Google was my next stop. They had five people manning their booth and they were all from the AdWords or Website Optimizer teams. Website Optimizer is a new Google tool to help you measure conversion but it unfortunately doesn’t work yet with AdSense which is a big source of revenue for me. I grabbed a free magnet and moved on.

Next up was Yahoo! The Yahoo! guys were really stealing the show. They had free giveaways of mini chairs as well as multipurpose pens. They also had MarioKart set up so you could challenge other attendees to a game. Most of the buzz in the hall was around the Yahoo! booth.

The booth I found most interesting was by a company called Brafton. Brafton CustomNews is the news agency specializing in providing tailored news feeds for websites. Newsroom journalists write news feed articles to an editorial brief and keyword strategy that is controlled by you. All articles are unique, search-engine friendly and archived on your website. What are the key benefits? Keep your website fresh and updated with breaking news; increase organic listings with search engine-optimized articles; inspire confidence and portray your brand as a leading sector voice; drive revenue by directing traffic to revenue pages from articles; and increase dwell time and repeat visits with archived and related articles. It’s an interesting concept and the sales guy was very knowledgeable. Unfortunately they had no marketing collateral to hand out so I left my contact information and am waiting for a follow up.

Sessions

The sessions then began. My favorite one of the day was actually the first one. The topic was Search Around the World: U.K., Europe, Asia Pacific, & Latin America. I discovered that the majority of Internet users are outside of North America (Europe and Asia) and that there are many rapidly growing emerging markets that online marketers could benefit by targeting early. My favorite speaker of the day was Andy Atkins-Krüger. Andy is a trained linguist who has worked in international marketing for 20 years having worked with major brand leaders in five continents during his career in advertising and public relations. Then in 1997 he discovered SEO and a couple of years later paid search. In fact as the Marketing Manager of Portakabin, Andy was responsible for promoting the company throughout Europe in the late nineties and needed an SEO solution that was multilingual. The result was the business now known as WebCertain which Andy bought share of and became Managing Director in 2002 - later he acquired the whole company.

Andy was very knowledgeable, provided great insights and answered many of the questions from the floor. I didn’t take too many notes because they said the slides would be available online afterwards but I don’t see them yet on the site so I’m hoping they come soon!

Google Blunder?

After Andy’s insightful talk I got to thinking about overseas opportunities. Would there be a significant opportunity to translate my content and tailor it to non-English speaking countries? Since AdSense provides a stable income base for my website I wondered how strong the opportunities were for publishers in foreign markets. It would be much harder for me to sell direct and affiliate products in languages I don’t understand so I would have to lean heavily on AdSense to get started. How strong are the opportunities for AdSense in foreign markets? Do you make higher cost per clicks if the content is translated into that foreign language? Which are the top markets to get into if I’m an AdSense publisher looking to go outside of North America?

I immediately went back to the Google table. Unfortunately nobody knew the answers to my questions as there wasn’t a representative from the AdSense team. Disappointed in not getting any solutions I took a pamphlet of theirs on Webmaster Tools and then asked a question I was facing with my own Webmaster Tools account. Unfortunately there wasn’t anybody there either who was knowledgeable about Webmaster Tools. They suggested that I post to Google Groups and someone would get back to me. I’m a big Google fan - they drive most of my traffic and pay me a lot through AdSense but to have at least 5 people staffing a booth and have none of them be familiar with AdSense or Webmaster Tools at a Search Engine Strategies conference seems ridiculous to me.

All in all, however, it was a great day and I’m looking forward to Day 2 tomorrow.

More reporting to come!

Evan Carmichael
YoungEntrepreneur.com Blog Manager

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This morning I’m off to SES Toronto and I’ve selected the following workshops for my agenda (thank you Kevin for the feedback):

11:00am-12:15pm - Search Around the World: U.K., Europe, Asia Pacific, & Latin America
Eastern and Western companies are rushing to get a piece of the action internationally, but does anyone really understand the marketplace? In this session, attendees will learn how to separate hype from actionable activity. Leading experts with “feet on the street” in the U.K., Europe, Asian Pacific, and Latin America discuss the marketplace and the impact it’s having on the world.

1:15pm-2:15pm - Orion Panel: Measuring Success in a 2.0 World
A successful search analytics strategy is key to maximizing ROI. Traffic is nice, but what happens after the click? What’s the dollar value of a lead? What about the dollar value of a social media relationship, or a discussion? Are analytics tools accurate? This panel of thought leaders in the field of analytics will discuss bounce rates, improving conversion, spotting trends, and generally elevating your SEO/PPC analysis to a whole new level.

2:30pm-3:45pm - State of Search Marketing in Canada
Which search engines are leaders in Canada, and what are they up to? What regional differences in search engine usage do we see within Canada? What vertical areas of search are growing? Representatives from major ratings and traffic analysis services share stats and info. Search engine representatives also comment on trends. Finally, panelists look to the big picture to assess the growing strength of digital marketing in Canada and where search fits in.

4:15pm-5:30pm - Beyond Linkbait: Getting Authoritative Online Mentions
Link building is crucial, but linkbait tactics that worked this year may not be as effective next year. This session focuses on the underlying quality as well as ingenuity needed to get other websites to link to you early and often. It will also explain how you should approach journalists, bloggers, and other authoritative sources to enhance your company’s online reputation — whether or not you get links.

I’ll report back later on in the day to share some of the things that I’ve learned from the conference!

Evan Carmichael
YoungEntrepreneur.com Blog Manager

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This week’s Entrepreneur University comes thanks to Anthony Mora. Anthony Mora Communications, Inc. is a Los Angeles-based public relations firm that focuses in the areas of media relations, image development and media training. Anthony shares with us his thoughts on how to be successful in a media interview:

Congratulations, you made it through the pre-interview, and the producer has booked you on the TV program. You have joined an elite group. This is what you’ve worked towards.

You’ve reviewed your wardrobe and dressed appropriately. If you’re discussing a product or a book, you’ve made sure that you’re taking along some extra samples (you have already sent copies to the producer). You’re about to walk out to your car, you’ve given yourself plenty of time (keep in mind - if you’re late, you’re dead), and you are ready to drive to the station and experience your first interview. Before you pull out of the driveway, be on the safe side, take a couple of minutes (you’ve given yourself plenty of time, right?) and review the following checklist.

1) Review the two or three primary points that you want to get across during the interview.

2) Make sure you’ve checked yourself in a mirror before you go on camera. Is your hair in place? Is your tie crooked? Is your lipstick smeared? Give yourself the basic once-over.

3) Remember, you don’t have to force the information; weave your points into the interview. If you spend your time forcing an issue, it will come out sounding strained and stilted.

4) Relax. You are there to have a conversation. Well, at least you want it to look like a conversation.

5) No slouching. Sit erect.

6) Focus on the interviewer. The camera and crew is part of the furniture as far as you’re concerned.

7) Start off with your most important information. Interviews can be very short. If you don’t lead with what’s important, you may have missed your chance.

8) Breathe. People have a tendency to hold their breath when nervous, which only creates more anxiety. Remember to breathe.

9) Smile. I’ve seen more media opportunities ruined by people who have refused to smile during their interviews. Looking grave does not make you appear more profound, it makes you look dull and somber.

10) Listen. Don’t anticipate questions. Don’t think that you know what the interviewer is asking. Wait until the question is asked and then respond.

11) If you get momentarily confused, or lose your train of thought, that’s okay. It happens to everyone. Take a deep breath and start again.

12) It’s alright to ask the interviewer to repeat a question. The last thing you want to do is give an answer to a question you don’t fully understand.

13) If the interviewer takes the conversation into an area you’re not comfortable with, or tries to manipulate you into answering questions that you don’t want to answer, remember you have control over the situation. Don’t be forced into saying something you don’t want to say. Be polite, and stay on course.

14) If a particular question throws you, or if you don’t want to answer a specific question, deflect it. Acknowledge that it was asked, and then return to an area that you’re comfortable addressing. You see and hear these types of responses every day around election time. An example of an appropriate response would be: “I certainly understand why you’d ask that question, but what’s really important is…,” now return to your agenda.

15) Don’t recite a laundry list of information and sacrifice a good interview. We’ve all had teachers who knew their subjects well, but bored the hell out of us. That may work in school, because there’s a captive audience, but you have no such luxury. You are there to interest as well as inform the audience.

16) Don’t be vague or use trade jargon. Speak in easy-to-understand language.

17) Show the audience what you’re talking about. Use a story or an account that illustrates a point, as opposed to just giving them vague ideas or theories.

18) Keep your information short, concise, and to the point. Keep it clear, short, and easy to understand.

19) When trying to make a particular point, be assertive but not pushy.

20) If having clients visit your store is pertinent to your business, mention your location. The viewers may love you, but if they can’t find you, you’re in trouble. Don’t simply blurt out your address, but weave your location into the conversation.

Bonus: Relax. Have fun. You’ve worked hard for this - enjoy it.

Evan Carmichael
YoungEntrepreneur.com Blog Manager

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I learned about Nate Marles through keepMEcurrent.com, a daily and weekly news website for the Greater Portland Region.

Nate, a 17 year old entrepreneur, has a computer repair business called Current Computer Tech and has already found 65 customers who use his services to fix and upgrade computers.

In addition to being a high school junior, Nate is certified by Hewlett Packard, Intel and IBM to work on their computers. He is also a beta tester for Microsoft.

Nate started the business at 14 when he fixed computers for people in their homes. He says the biggest growth for him came when he moved from personal computers to working with small business customers.

“I have at least 10 or 15 business clients. I take courses on how to service their needs. These are businesses that have Web sites, and have their employees connected to servers.” 

Although Nate owns the business, it has become a family affair where his father helps him with his taxes and his mother drove him to client sites before he got his own license to drive. His father, Greg, used to run two different business and has helped mentor Nate.

“I’ve taught him that if you don’t take care of your customers, you won’t keep them. You need to deliver what your customers want, not what you want them to have.” 

The advice is paying off as Nate’s customers are happier than ever. According to Anne Telesco, one of his customers:

“Nate is just wonderful. I’ve got him on my speed dial under the name ‘computer god.’ Nate is very mature for his age. Quite frankly, he is very mature for someone 10 years older than he. My computer had flat-lined when I called Nate. He did the work really fast. He took my hard drive home, ran some diagnostics on it and fixed everything. I was relieved. This was something I could not do myself.” 

Price has also been his competitive advantage. He charges $20 per hour where many computer repair technicians can charge up to $100 per hour.

“Charging a lot of money would be too stressful. I try to do what is reasonable. I may have scheduled two hours to be at a client’s house or business to fix one problem. What if I find other problems and it takes me four hours? Then I am charging that person $400. That’s quite a bit of money.”

The money he’s made so far is going towards his college education as well as a new laptop that he just purchased and his cell phone bills.

“This is an exciting time for my company. More businesses are finding out that I can do major repairs but at a lower cost than the competitors. I’m flexible too. I put out proposals that fit the clients instead of telling them this is what I can do.” 

What’s next for Nate? He’s planning on going retail to start selling electronics and warranties. He has also recently created an online accounting section on his website where his clients can see price quotes online, access their invoices, and pay their bills.

Evan Carmichael
YoungEntrepreneur.com Blog Manager

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Next week is the start of Search Engine Strategies Toronto and I will be reporting from the expo on Tuesday and Wednesday. Fortunately for me I live in Toronto so my travel time consists of hopping on my Vespa and driving to the conference center.

I’ve never been to a SES conference so I’m excited to see what the excitement is all about. There are three tracks that attendees have the option of attending (at any point in time there are three seminars going on at once so you have to pick which track you want to go on). The three tracks are: Get Me Up to Speed, Practical & Actionable, and Advanced. Judging from the seminar information my inclination is to focus on the Advanced track but I will list the different seminars below. As I will be reporting from the event, if there is a particular seminar that you would like more information on please let me know and I might attend it for you.

Track: Get Me Up to Speed

• Introduction to Search Engine Marketing
• State of Search Marketing in Canada
• Site Clinic
• Search Advertising: PPC 101
• Keyword Research: Purpose, Tools and Tactics
• Link Building: The Basics & Beyond
• SEO Don’ts, Myths & Scams

Track: Practical & Actionable

• Search Around the World: UK, Europe, Asia Pacific & Latin America
• Getting Found in Maps & Local Search
• Beyond Linkbait: Getting Authoritative Online Mentions
• What’s Different About B2B? Tailored Strategies
• SEM Toolkit: Marketers Share
• Accessibility, Usability & SEO
• Site Clinic

Track: Advanced

• Universal & Blended Search
• Paid Search: Advanced Issues in PPC
• Twitter: Ultimate Time Waster, or Great Tool?
• User Search Behavior
• Social Media Success
• Web 2.0 & Search Engines
• Giving Credit Where It’s Due: Which Campaign Sold What?

Which topics are you most interested in?

Of course, if you plan on attending, let me know as well!

Evan Carmichael
YoungEntrepreneur.com Blog Manager

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