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101 Killer Resources for Virtual Business Owners

Blogtrepreneur has a very helpful post listing 101 of the services/references/resources that most online entrepreneurs will find handy.

Included in the master list is:

• Online Communications Tools
• Data Backup Systems
• Invoicing
• Financial Management and Accounting
• Time Management and Project Management
• Contact Management
• Hiring Freelancers
• Online Reputation Management Tools
• Accepting payment
• Shopping Carts
• Social Networking
• Finding Funding

...And like a gazillion other things. Check it out: 101 Useful Resources for Online Entrepreneurs

How to save money running a virtual business (9 really helpful tips)

  Piggy Bank 
  Originally uploaded by Odalaigh

If there's one thing an internet entrepreneur needs to know, it's how to pinch pennies. It's not like in the corporate world when you just put everything on the company credit card--the money is coming out of our own pockets, so we've gotten darn good at knowing when to save and splurge!

Think back to your first business--did you spend money needlessly in any area? I think we all probably have :-) I remember how I was obsessed with fancy stationary, business cards, and a sophisticated phone system. I thought I would need that stuff, but I've never actually used any of it.

Jason Calicanis, who has some experience in running a start up business or two ;-), has a great post called How to save money running a startup . He has 17 tips, and I've picked the top 9 that I think really apply to virtual business owners.

Here they are...drumroll please:

Internet killed the resume star

  internet killed the record store 
  Originally uploaded by adoresubtract_photo

Remember back in the day when job seekers used to labor over their resumes, trying valiantly to impress their prospective employers within the narrow boundaries of a pristine, personality-free, humor-less, vanilla piece of letterhead paper?

Thank goodness those days have come to an end. Seth Godin asks the question-- Why bother having a resume when there are so many more creative and potent ways of showing someone you want to work with what you're made of, who you are, and what brilliance you're capable of?

After all, don't we want to know/show more than just dates of employment and job descriptions? Yawn!

The resume is dead. If you want to truly get that client, that job, that project, you need to step out of the box and market yourself and your abilities in a more creative way.

Torch your resume or anything you have on your website that looks like a resume. Stop being ordinary and get to work on these drop dead impressive personal marketing tactics:

Six Figure Blogging Course Is Back! FREE Preview

Professional blogging is a cutting edge, emerging career possibility, and to those of us who grew up thinking that our job alternatives were doctor, lawyer, accountant, secretary, and fireman, the thought that someone might truthfully wear the job title of "problogger" is kinda space age (and exciting!).

In case you're wondering what the in's and out's are in breaking into this field, you might wanna check out the free preview call for Darren Rowse's and Andy Wibbels' tour de force professional blogging course.

Here are the details:

What: Six Figure Blogging Preview Call

When: Wednesday April 2nd @ 8pm EST

How do I get in on this? Click here and sign up

Cost: FREE

Oh, and btw, I've already taken this course, and can vouch for it. In fact, this is probably my favorite online class I've ever taken. These guys definitely know what they're talking about, and the actual course is broken down into easily digestible pieces. There's tons of practical and priceless info in the course, and even the free preview call is hugely enlightening, so even if you don't take the course, you should definitely go to the free preview call. I'm going to it--hope to see you there!

The top 5 classic problogger myths: EXPOSED!

  Is that a unicorn on your shoulder ...
   Originally uploaded by tartx

You've probably heard mythical tales about folks building sites from scratch, earning enough off the site to quit their day job, and later selling the site for a gazillion dollars or more.

We love those stories, because it sounds like every office renegade's fantasy--work in your pajamas, write from your heart, play around for most the day, rake in embarrassing amounts of cash. Ahhh, that's the life!

The truth is that there is as much myth as fact mixed in with that fantasy.

I've studied problogging, worked with some of the biggest blog rockstars in the business, and have even tried my own hand at it, and one thing I've learned is that behind the myth, behind the fantasies, behind the growing amount of media attention this hot new internet career is garnering, there is a solid, legitimate, long term business opportunity for those willing to invest the significant time, resources, and energy needed to start with nothing and grow a site into a cash cow.

If you've ever had the inkling that you might be able to turn your blog into a business but just aren't sure, you might wanna confront these classic problogging myths first:

9 really convincing reasons NOT to be a workaholic

Let's see a show of hands--How many of us when we were growing up had the dream to one day work in a sweatshop? Hmmm?

I don't think any of us when we were first creating our virtual businesses and dreaming about the lifestyle we wanted ever decided that it would be a healthy, life-enriching thing to work 14 hour days 6 or 7 days a week. And yet somehow many web workers find themselves in just that sort of situation.

Small business owners are extremely diligent and dedicated--that just goes along with being an entrepreneur :-). It's a very admirable trait to have a vision and be willing to work hard to attain it, but we need to pull back sometimes and remember that there are definite benefits to NOT being a workaholic.

Signals vs Noise has a great post outlining 5 reasons why it's not a great idea to work with workaholics (or be one yourself).

The Top 100 Productivity and Lifehack Blogs

Wow--CollegeDegree.com has compiled a very useful resource that is making all of us productivity junkies swoon!

It's The Top 100 Productivity and Lifehack Blogs, and eSoup is honored to be included.

The list is most helpfully divided into the categories of Life Organizers, Productivity in the Workplace, Expert Advice, Personal Growth, Prioritizing/GTD, and Personal Finance Hacks.

I've already found some stellar blogs that I didn't know about--definitely going to be surfing that list for the next few weeks! :-)

Thou Shalt Unplug: Implementing A Secular Sabbath

We web workers who spend most of our waking hours online live a paradoxical life--we are uber connected, infinitely reachable, and almost always available to various people around the globe.

But this perpetual connectedness to other people through the virtual world (IM, email, internet, phone, etc) can often lead to a feeling of being disconnected from what is real. We lose our quiet time, we lose our privacy, and sometimes the technology that is so great at connecting us to folks far away acts as a wall between ourselves and the people in our real everyday life.

 We love technology and being connected, but what we're searching for is some balance so that we use technology intelligently but are not controlled by it.

Spit-Shine Your Online Reputation In 5 Easy Steps

Can I see a show of hands–how many of you folks have ever googled someone when you wanted to find out more info about them? I think we all have. But at the same time you’re googling others, others are also googling you–what are they finding?

Before I started doing some of these online marketing techniques, whenever I would google my name, info about another person would show up in the search results (yes, apparently there is another Sharon Sarmiento in the world, and she was outranking me for my name!). Now when I do a search for my name, the first few pages of results are really about me, and all of my writing (through blogging and article marketing) is showcased.

Knowledge is power, so google yourself, and if you don’t like what you’re seeing know that with a tidbit work you can do one of those “extreme” (on subtle) makeover thingys with an arsenal of social media and online marketing tools:

How To Schedule Your Blogging Time Like A Professional Writer

Whether you think of yourself as a professional writer or not, if you have a blog (or two, or three, or four, or more!), it's a sure thing that you'll find yourself writing pretty much every day, and after a while you'll start to wonder:

How could I be organizing my time in such a way as to get the most creativity and productivity out of my blogging time?

I found myself in that situation last year, and I discovered that the difference between being able to post 3 times a week (or less) on one blog and being able to post twice a day on multiple blogs was all determined in how I scheduled my writing time.