I’m a big fan of using tools to help me run my business better. That’s why I love the internet. There are so many ways to make your business run smarter, faster and even on autopilot that you can literally make money without even being there.

Choosing the right tools can be a challenge for some people.

Internet Resources & Tools

Here’s a list of things to consider when choosing the resources and tools to build your business:

1. How does this help my ROI (return on investment)? In other words, will using this tool make you more money?
2. Why do you want to use it? Are you considering a tool because someone told you that you MUST have it, or do you actually need it?
3. Is it in your budget? You’d be amazed at how many free and low cost options there are out there, don’t sign up for a high-priced tool before doing your research and deciding if it really is within your budget.
4. Is it user friendly? There’s nothing worse than downloading a program you need now and finding out it’s going to take you eight months to learn it. On the other hand, investing some time in learning a program that will advance your business is a smart move.

How Can Internet Tools Improve Your Business?

There are a few ways I use internet tools to build my business strong and make more money. Here they are:

Automation - This might very well be my favorite! Automate and you don’t have to be there. Plan ahead, do the work, set it and then move on to the next thing. There are many tools that make this possible.

Organization - There are tools that help you organize files, information, passwords and more.

Speedy-ness – There are many tools you can use to do things faster online. The need for speed is great when you want to get a lot of things done in a limited amount of time! (yes and I know speedy-ness is not a real word )

Recommend Internet Resources & Tools

Now, there are many tools I use in my business and over the years I’ve learned to use them well. This is my personal list of tools I use all the time. The thing is, your business and your personality is different so all these tools probably won’t fit you. Pick and choose the ones that you need and the ones you can put to action right now.

1. Wordtracker – I use this almost every day. Free keyword research tool to find out what people are searching for online.

2. Google Adwords Keyword Tool – Another keyword research tool. It’s powerful when used in combination with Wordtracker.

3. WordPress – This blog is build on WordPress and so are most all of my other websites. It allows me to automate, organize and increase my speed all at the same time with the features of this software.

4. Aweber – I couldn’t write a list of tools without mentioning Aweber. I use this program to build my email list. Best email marketing tool in my opinion!

5. Filezilla - I use Filezilla to upload files like pdf documents, audios and videos to my website hosting so I can put them on my site or link to them. There are other good uses for filezilla.

6. Gimp – Gimp is free and it’s a great graphics program. I’ll warn you that it did take a while to really learn this program. It’s one you need a bit of time to master but well worth the savings over a graphics person if you’re on a tight budget.

7. Feeddemon – I read and comment on blogs for a few reasons: to learn, to network and to get incoming links back to my site. I use Feeddemon to keep everything organized.

8. FreeMind – Sometimes I need to put my work into a mind map. FreeMind is another free tool that let’s you create these maps to help plan out your business.

9. Basecamp – Anyone who does freelancing could benefit from Basecamp. It is the ultimate in online project management. You can have multiple team members on a project, to-do lists, due dates and much more.

10. Freshbooks – When I started using Freshbooks for my client billing I shaved hours of my monthly invoicing to clients. Very useful and it also integrates time tracking and billing together.

11. Gmail – I couldn’t forget Gmail! Having a well-organized email inbox is probably one of the best things you can do for your business productivity. Gmail is an amazing tool for organizing, sorting and quickly responding to email.

12. Roboform – I posted about Roboform earlier this week. I can even think of running my online business without this tool – what a mess that would be! Hundreds of passwords but only one to remember, that’s how Roboform keeps me sane.

It’s all about the mojo! Find what works for you, do it and then make it work better.

p.s. It would be a bit of overwhelm if you decided to download and try using all these new tools at once. If you want to start with just one check out Roboform to save hours upon hours storing and trying to remember your login information. Plus Roboform automatically fills forms to save you time in more than one way. Click here to download a free trial of Roboform

I’m a real live internet marketer. I make money on the internet. I don’t find clients or sell stuff offline, everything I do is online.

Sometimes I forget the amazing accomplishment that is.

There is still a huge portion of the population that have no idea where to even start making money online.

So how did it happen? Oh boy, pull up a chair!

I’m going to go through a play by play history of how I became an internet marketer. It wasn’t a straight path, like most things, and I’ve still got lots to learn and ways to grow (don’t we all). Here’s how I got where I am today.

1999 – Learning HTML & Websites

It all started in 1999 when my lab partner in college, Elizabeth, handed me a sheet of paper with HTML code.

We had somehow been talking about making internet pages and she knew how. I was interested but had no idea at the time what I’d do with website. I took the sheet of code, went to the computer room at our school and signed up for a Geocities account. From there I started building my own website.

My first website was a hobby site for beaded jewelery I used to make. I would scan photos of my jewelery into the site for people to look at. It wasn’t a business at all, I just was having fun and playing around.

2001 – Hobby to Business Venture

Years later I had a new hobby, soapmaking.

I had learned how to make soap at college through my course in Chemical Engineering Technology. We had a laboratory session on making soap but we weren’t supposed to use it (I guess if we messed up the recipe and it was lye-heavy they didn’t want to get sued). The soapmaking really peek my curiosity and I decided I wanted to start making soap at home. So my home soapmaking hobby was born. I started brewing up all kinds of stuff including other bath & body products like lip balms, bath salts, bath bombs and more.

Then I had my son. I was on maturnity leave and I couldn’t imagine leaving him and going back to work. I had always wanted to have a business but this new, amazing little life fueled a determination like no other to have a successful home business. I wanted the freedom to do whatever I wanted whenever I wanted. So I turned my soap hobby into a business and I started my own ecommerce website.

I learned so much from this first business website I owned. I learned how to set up a shopping cart, charge shipping, charge taxes. Then I had to learn how to get traffic and how to turn that traffic into sales. These were the basics but thinking back now they are just as important today to any new business as they were back then.

From what I learned I started a new website for other soapmakers to teach them how to make money with their websites.

Eventually I decided to move on from the soap business.

2002 – Offline Sales Lady

I started a business that has nothing to do with internet marketing.

I was a representative of a company named C.S.T. (Canadian Scholarship Trust Plan). What I did was sign new accounts up for an R.E.S.P (Registered Education Savings Plan). This plan is a government registered saving plan for parents of young children to save for their future education.

This was a business I didn’t use the internet for. A very big lesson I learned in this business though was to never just follow the money. The ONLY reason I really joined this business was because of the extravagant claims my sponsor made about how much money she made as a rep. I was entirely drawn in by the idea of getting huge paychecks and if you’ve ever done the same you know that money along is not enough motivation to keep a business going.

2005 – Network Marketing on the Internet

I came across the Mia Bella company as I was searching online for a new business to start. After I scrapped the soapmaking business I had gone back to work for a few years. I needed a break, a rest, time to regroup. I never game up on the decision to own my own business.

Mia Bella candles seemed like a perfect fit for me so I joined as a representative and started building my website. The point of the website was to tell people about the business opportunity of selling candles and making money. I did well with it. From that site I recruited a fairly strong team.

I ran the candle company all while I was working full time. I was hoping to be able to quit my job on the income from that business but it just wasn’t happening as quickly as I wanted it to. Again, this was a case where I considered the business opportunity and didn’t look closely enough at what I really enjoyed doing.

2006 – Starting a Virtual Assistance Business

After I quit the candle company I was feeling pretty discouraged and a little desperate even. I remember seeing a friend post on her blog that she was no longer accepting virtual assistant clients and she would no longer be working “dollars for hours”. I thought to myself that I would much rather work “dollars for hours” at home in my own business than be out there in my factory job making money for someone else, so I opened up my doors as a virtual assistant.

My virtual assistant business took off very quickly. I started off at an unbelievably cheap rate ($5/hr) and then grew my hourly charge from there. It actually provided me with enough money to quit my factory job! I was so excited.

The problem with my virtual assistant business was that I never thought it to be a long term solution. I wanted a business I loved and I wanted passive income. I mean, I had traded one boss for a whole bunch of bosses and over time I started to become unhappy, resentful, stressed out and burnt out.

2008 – Finding the Mojo, Marketers Mojo!!!

I love what I’m doing now. My goals are now completely aligned with my values, my personality and my desired lifestyle.

Here at Marketers Mojo I just get to be me, to share my story and my knowledge with people like you and people like me. People who are coming to my site to find out how they can build a business they love without being the sleezy ‘car salesman’ type persona. It’s entirely possible and it feels great!

p.s. Don’t miss any more posts like this one! Sign up to the Marketers Mojo RSS feed by clicking here. Or get on the Marketers Mojo Email list for post updates and great info on how to love your business, love your life. Your private information is always safe. Enter your name and email below to get on the list:

What Is Roboform Pro?

Roboform fills passwords. It fills forms. It’s like a great big filing cabinet in a little popup window (or toolbar).

Roboform is a lifesaver for me. I use it to fill out passwords on all my websites, social media sites, affiliate programs, software programs and just about anything you can think of that requires login security.

Roboform also fills out forms. This is especially useful as a business owner when doing repetitive form filling such as signing up to a large number of websites (see this in action for article marketing here). When used to fill out sign up or order forms just a click of a button fills out a form and saves a good 3-5 minutes per form.

In order to access your Roboform passwords you can set the program to be password protected. This is recommended and in doing so you only need to remember one password, the program will do the rest.

Free Download
When you initially download Roboform you can sign up for a free 30-day trial.

System Requirements
Runs on Windows 95/98/Me/2000/XP/Vista/NT. According to CNet.com there have been over 14.5 MILLION downloads of this handy piece of software.

It’s important to note that Roboform runs on an Internet Browser. If you’re not sure what that means a browser is a program on your computer that lets you connect to and view the internet. Programs such as Internet Explorer and Firefox are browsers and both work with Roboform.

You can also get a toolbar for Roboform for both IE and Firefox. This is a convenient way to fill forms, login to sites or even visit a site and login in one click.

Here’s what the toolbar looks like on my computer in Firefox:

There is also a free iphone app for Roboform.

Backing Up Your Important Login Information

Roboform also allows you to print out all your login information you have stored in it, this is a great way to create a backup file.

Another feature of Roboform is that it can be added to and sync’d with multiple computers. You can also get a portable USB version of Roboform or the newly added online version.

Who Is Roboform Pro For?

If you run a business on the internet I feel this really is an essential tool for organization. Without it I have no confidence in my abilities to keep up with the hundreds of logins and passwords that come across my computer on a monthly basis.

One feature of Roboform is that it allows you to create multiple identities and store multiple passwords for the same site. This is a dream for any virtual assistant or freelancer who needs to keep track of login information for clients. Now, with Roboform, you can neatly set up and organize a folder for each client and save all the login information you need in a very secure spot.

Roboform is not for someone who’s not willing to invest some time in getting to know how Roboform works. The more technically savvy you are, the quickly you’ll catch on with how to use the features. Even if you are not too technical at all Roboform is not difficult to use and it is definitely worth the time investment. You’ll
save yourself hours sifting through passwords monthly.

Negatives to Digital Password Protection

If you forget to save your passwords somewhere else and count on Roboform that could end up being a very big disaster.

With that being said, there’s a very easy fix. Back up your Roboform files to another location such as Dropbox.com and print out a physical copy for your records. You could also save your files to USB or have a USB Travel Version of Roboform installed and sync’d up to your base computer files.

Overall I consider Roboform to be one of the most important tools I use to run my online business. I’ve seen way too many clients stressing over logins when they could simply click a button and be done. Don’t let that happen to you, save yourself the unneeded stress of trying to sort through login information on your own.

Ready? You’ve got nothing to lose with a free trial on the table:

Click Here to Download Roboform Free Right Now

Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus

Dear Editor—

I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. Papa says, “If you see it in The Sun, it’s so.” Please tell me the truth, is there a Santa Claus?

Virginia O’Hanlon

Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men’s or children’s, are little. In this great universe of ours, man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus! It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies. You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if you did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that’s no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.

You tear apart the baby’s rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived could tear apart. Only faith, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, Virginia, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.

No Santa Claus! Thank God! he lives and lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay 10 times 10,000 years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.

I’m getting a little impatient with myself and my website. Do you know that feeling?

Over the years I’ve done that. I started a business that wasn’t producing as quickly as I wanted, I’d get really impatient, I’d figure it wasn’t going to work and then I’d just move along to another shiny new business.

Well this time it’s not going to happen. I have 10 years experience on the internet, about 6 years experience in internet marketing and I know I have TONS of useful information to share.

What I’m not going to do is bullshit you though. I’m not going to tell you I’m a huge success, that I make a six figure income online and I can teach you how to do it in 10 days or less.

Let’s Keep It Real, Hey?

I’m always going to keep it real here. That’s one good reason to buy from me. Get to know me and you’ll know that I hate liers, and I hate lying so you won’t get any crap, hype or propaganda here – I think you’ll like that.

I also go through periods of self-doubt where I wonder myself ‘Why should people buy from me?’. Sometimes I think that fact that I’m not a millionaire GURU or at least a six-figure income earner would be a good reason NOT to buy from me.

But you know what? Sometimes people ‘on their way’ can be even more helpful than those who’ve ‘been there’ for years. I mean, I really understand where you are and where you want to be. I really understand the frustration of picking a business, making sure it’s the right one, getting frustrated, starting over and of course I totally understand the roller coaster ride of not knowing if you’ll have enough money to pay the bills month after month!

I Learn From My Mistakes, Sometimes!

What I’ve learned over the last ten years could fill a lot of books. I’ve made some mistakes three times over. I keep doing them until the lesson sticks, haha!

One of the reasons why you should buy from me is you’ll learn one of the most important traits of any entrepreneur, anywhere. It’s determination, stick-to-it-ness, and a never give up attitude. I know I am meant to be an inspiration to others who want to run successful online businesses, I know I’m supposed to help and I’m supposed to teach and learn and grow and do.

Never giving up on me also means I’ll never give up on you! I want to help you live your dreams, I want to help you realize that you can truly build a business you love and live life on your own terms. I’m getting there and I’d love to have you join me for the ride.

Will you?

p.s. Don’t miss any more posts like this one! Sign up to the Marketers Mojo RSS feed by clicking here. Or get on the Marketers Mojo Email list for post updates and great info on how to love your business, love your life. Your private information is always safe. Enter your name and email below to get on the list: