The Month in Review: September Earnings and More

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September has come and gone and now we get back into the holiday season. Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas are right around the corner! I am pretty sure Wal-Mart is already stocking the Christmas items, too!

Anyway, with the month finished, its about that time that I sometimes put together a earnings post for the month and all around update on the status of the site. So, lets get started.

SEPTEMBER EARNINGS

Private Ads: $10.00
Sponsored Reviews: $9.75
Text Link Ads: $25.52
ReviewMe: $40.00
Adsense: $14.73
TOTAL: $100.00

Some notes on the earnings and other items…
On top of the $14.73 that I “earned” from AdSense for the month, I actually got my latest Adsense payment of over $100. Since I don’t make enough through AdSense to get a monthly deposit (more than $100), it is nice every couple months when it does come through.

I have sold a few private ads on the site over the past few months and there has also been a lot of interest in purchasing advertising on the site. If you are interested, check out the rates on the Advertise page and then get in contact with me to discuss. All the ad formats are available (text link, image ad, and sponsored posts).

I am happy that I hit the $100 mark again for the month, that is good news. I hope that this month we will be able to get over that and get closer to $150. With two new bloggers on board to help write for the site, I think we will be able to pump out some great content that will hopefully attract some more monthly advertisers and sponsors. Page views and visitors have taken about a 40% increase in September from August and just about doubled from July. I know they are not impressive numbers (1200 visits and 1600 page views) but they are continuing to go up daily and look forward to what October brings.

With college classes back in full force for everyone, I will hopefully be able to put out some useful content for student entrepreneurs - if you have ideas for posts, please let me know and we will write about them! Also, if you have questions you’d like for us to try to answer, email me and we will either email you back or post about it on the site!

Obviously the most popular post from the month was the contest post. As I already reviewed after the contest finished, there were over 300 combined entries and over 80 comments. Some of the other popular posts for the month included:

• 12 Websites You Need to Be Using As An Entrepreneur
• Are You A Toilet Entrepreneur?

We also got out 14 posts for the month, which equates to almost one every other day. October is going to be better - I swear! Keep a look out!

I think that is about all the updates that I have for now. October is a busy month for me (as far as the weekends go) but I should be able to get a lot of posts written while at work…like I am now.

Anyway, keep your heads up, keep hustlin’, and keep making the green!

-Chris

P.S. New Dorm Room Biz design is still in the works - look for it to be launching this month…..I hope! It should be great!

P.S.S. Thanks for continuing to come back and visit the site! Be sure to subscribe via RSS or Email and then follow me on Twitter!

12 Websites You Need To Be Using As An Entrepreneur

What’s up guys? There are literally thousands of websites and services out there that help entrepreneurs and small business owners to run their business, promote and market themselves, and control the chaos. However, deciding which ones to use is the problem. Here is a list of some of the best services out there that you need to be using or at least looking at for your small business.

Twitter
Twitter allows you to update your followers with what is going on, what you are doing, and what you want to talk about. Limited to 140 characters, you have the opportunity to reach a wide audience with your messages. Following people and having followers is the key to success on Twitter -  you need to build your audience. The micro-blogging platform is free and super easy to use via the web or text messaging. Join, start following, advertise your business, services, or products and watch your business grow.
Website: http://www.twitter.com
Cost: Free

Facebook
What - you’re not on Facebook? What the hell are you thinking? Start a profile for yourself, start a page for your business, and start adding your friends. Use Facebook as an avenue to connect with customers on a whole different level. You can also find your friends from college, high school, and former workplaces. Interact with your friends and start talking up your business. Refer people to your business’s Facebook page or group and get them to join it. As people start joining, others will see the notice on their feeds that their friends are joining your group - which may entice them to join themselves. This is a great way to grow your audience and potential customer base. The social aspects of Facebook are also great - upload and share pictures, links, stores, and more.
Website: http://www.facebook.com
Cost: Free

FreshBooks
Looking for a good and easy way to invoice your clients, track your time, or track your expenses? Then check out FreshBooks! The free service will allow you to add a few clients and the paid version will allow for more, but basically you can send invoices to your clients through email and share documents with them as well. The service is great for someone like a web designer or developer that needs to share documents and information constantly with their clients.
Website: http://www.freshbooks.com
Cost: Free or $14/month and up

Basecamp
Project management and collaboration can be a tricky thing when you are small and just starting out. When you are working with a lot of other people on a project, it is key to keep everyone on the same page. Basecamp from 37Signals will help you do that! Basecamp will allow you to customize your management area look and feel, share it with your customers or team members, and share all kinds of documents and information. Anything from 37Signals is a helpful tool for your business, so check out their other services as well.
Website: http://www.basecamphq.com/
Cost: 30 day free trial or $25/month and up

SmartyPig
If you are looking to save up some of your businesses income and hold on to it for a big purchase of new equipment or other needs for your business, then you need to look in to SmartyPig. SmartyPig allows you to set up savings goals and have money deposited into a savings account direct from your bank account each month. I use them for mostly personal savings goals, but business savings goals are definitely a great idea. The people at SmartyPig are awesome and offer great support, so I strongly recommend them - the best part? It’s free!
Website: http://www.smartypig.com
Cost: Free

LinkedIn
If you don’t like Facebook because you feel there is too much info free for searching and not enough privacy, check out the more professional social network, LinkedIn. LinkedIn has been around for a good while, maybe even longer than Facebook? LinkedIn allows you to connect with collegaues, classmates, and other professionals in similar industries…or just random people like Facebook. However, LinkedIn is focused more on the professional side of social networking and growing your connections. You can have people endorse you to help you grow your presence and you don’t have to really worry about any crazy party pictures of you doing a keg stand showing up on your managers Facebook feed (wouldn’t that suck?).
Website: http://www.linkedin.com
Cost: Free

Google Analytics
I could not create a list of useful websites without having at least one Google product on it. Analytics is an awesome visitor tracking program that Google has developed. All you need to do is slap a few lines of code on your site and let it be. Analytics will automatically start tracking your sites visitors - telling you where they are coming from, how long they are staying, what pages they are visiting, and much much more. The best part? Like most things from Google, it is free! There is no reason that you should not be using the program to track your site traffic and evaluate what is working for you.
Website: http://www.google.com/analytics
Cost: Free

YouTube
Social media is a huge part of the web 2.0 revolution and is attracting many more people and businesses to the internet. One way to take advantage of social media and viral marketing is through uploading videos that you create to free video sharing websites such as YouTube. YouTube allows you to upload any video you make (as long as it is under its file size requirements) and share it with your friends, embed it in your website, or post it on other websites such as Facebook. YouTube offers an amazing way to find new customers and visitors for your website. By displaying your website name, logo, or web address in your videos, you will see some traffic come from YouTube…as long as the video is good and people are watching it! If you’re looking to brand yourself and your business, start making some videos and posting them on YouTube!
Website: http://www.youtube.com
Cost: Free

Mint
Looking for a good free way to manage your finances and keep track of your spending? Then you should check out Mint. Mint allows you to link pretty much any bank account, credit card account, and online payment account (like PayPal) to your Mint account and see a summary of your spending and your total income/debt. You can then see trends as to what you are spending the most on and what you need to cut back on. Mint also provides you with different opportunities to save money by switching banks or credit card offers.
Website: http://www.mint.com
Cost: Free

StartupNation
StartupNation is a community website for entrepreneurs featuring step-by-step advice, videos, podcasts, and many resources. The website also features a pretty active forum. StartupNation is definitely a site to keep an eye on as you work on developing your business and have questions you want to try to get answered.
Website: http://www.startupnation.com
Cost: Free

Young Go Getter
Young Go Getter is an active forum for entrepreneurs. You can definitely get the help you need from this group of dedicated people with their knowledge spanning a wide array of industries and technologies. If you have questions about an industry, looking for some help, or just want a place to hang out, then check out YGG.
Website: http://www.younggogetter.com
Cost: Free

Young Entrepreneur
A community of entrepreneurs and want to be entrepreneurs exceeding more than 5000 members strong, YE is a site to visit and visit often. Although some of the content may not always be the most relevant or it may be ’spam’ posts, if you have the time to sort through and find the good stuff, then it is worth it. I talked with the creator a couple weeks back and he says things are in the works to make YE much better in the coming weeks, so keep an eye out! This group of helpful people can definitely be a benefit to you and will help you in any way they can!
Website: http://www.youngentrepreneur.com
Cost: Free

And finally, of course, Dorm Room Biz is always one of the best places to get help as a student entrepreneur!

What are your favorite websites to check and resources to refer to when you need some help?

Whats Going On Around Dorm Room Biz?

I thought I’d put together a general update to kick off the month of September covering some Dorm Room Biz related news as well as some other notes and links.

Happenings at Dorm Room Biz:

• Check out the contest going on now: The contest goes until the 19th so join in on the fun and win some cool prizes! More prizes are being added this week, so get your entries in.
• August Earnings: August saw a major drop in income because of being a pretty much vacation month for me. Besides working my job, I enjoyed some extended weekends for vacations and therefore was not able to put as much into monetizing this site. However, I did keep the site profitable with some sponsored posts and links. Earnings for the month were around $70 which came from ReviewMe, Sponsored Reviews, and Text Link Ads.
• Wrapping up a new theme for the website!

Other Cool Stuff Around The Web:

• My friends over at Blogtrepreneur published a massive list of 101 resources for managing your money online. If you want to keep track of your finances online, then you should definitely check it out!
• Market Leverage continues to rock it out with some pretty big contests around the web, especially over at Tyler Cruz’s site. If you haven’t already, I highly recommend signing up with ML to start taking your affiliate commissions to the next level.
• If you have not been following The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur blog and website, then you should. There is tons of great content posted including videos, so check it out now!

The First Ever Dorm Room Biz Contest!

Almost three years have gone by since starting Dorm Room Biz way back in the day of December 2005. So now here we are in 2008 and it is time to kick up the dust a little bit and run what will hopefully turn out to be a cool contest. The idea is simple: help promote and grow Dorm Room Biz in anyway you can (posting, commenting, subscribing, emailing, etc). For your efforts, you have the opportunity to win some cool prizes. I’ll outline all the details below.

How To Enter

As with most of the contests that go on around the blogosphere, there are a few different ways to enter and earn chances to win a prize. Here they are:

1. Comment on this post and you will get one entry
2. Comment on other posts throughout the course of the contest and get one entry for each comment. Comments need to be worthwhile and not just a “nice post” type of comment. Have some substance people!
3. Write about the contest on your blog and receive 5 entries into the contest. Please provide a trackback to this post or leave a comment with a link to your post.
4. Subscribe to the email feed and get another 5 entries for the contest.

Everyone who participates will be entered into a random generator and names will be pulled for the winners randomly.

Contest Timeline

The contest starts…TODAY and runs until September 19th. On the 20th I will run the names and announce the winners.

The Prizes

I know this is the section you guys have been waiting for, so here is a list of the prizes that are up for grabs.

• $50 via PayPal - 1st place
• The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur book by Mike Michalowicz, signed copy - 1st place
• 1 Month of advertising on Blogtrepreneur, 125×125 ad spot ($50 value) - 1st place
• 1,000 EntreCard Credits - 2nd place
• You Call The Shots book by Cameron Johnson, signed copy - 2nd place
• 1 Month of advertising on Young Entrepreneur Blog, 125×125 ad spot - 3rd place
• The Student Success Manifesto book by Michael Simmons, signed copy
• Zero to One Million book by Ryan Allis
• Great Failures of the Extremely Successful by Steve Young
• Ten Minutes To The Job Interview by Rachel Ingegneri

You can see the prizes listed for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd places. The other books and any other prizes that get sponsored will be given at random!

There are still lots of opportunities for contest sponsors and I am constantly searching and talking with people to get more prizes for this!

Online printing services help entrepreneurs save money!

For small business owners and entrepreneurs, getting business cards or letterhead can be a cost that you do not want to incur. However, there are a lot of benefits that come from having your own personalized and professionally printed materials. Besides them looking more professional then printing them on your own inkjet, you can get guaranteed results that look great, support with designing the right look for your business, and add-on services for discounted prices. For example, if you get 500 business cards printed, you may be able to get 20% off of letterhead printing.

With the large amount on internet companies that offer printing services strictly through their website, what used to be a chore to get business cards printed, is all of the sudden a much easier task. Now all you need to do is upload your own graphic, select your quantity, and order. Or you can design your cards through different templates and fonts available for customization. The whole process can be done in 5 - 10 minutes easily. Then a few days later, you have your brand new business cards. For about $20 you can have 200 business cards professionally printed on glossy card stock that would have cost upwards of $50 at any local printing company or office supplies store like Staples.

There are a lot of these online printers who would love to have your business as a young entrepreneur. One company to check out for online printing is PsPrints.com. They have a great array of print services and products that they offer including business cards, brochures, letterhead, flyers, catalogs, CD sleeves, banners, and more. The nice thing about PsPrint is that they do offer so many services on one site. Some of their competition only offers the basic printing services that you would expect like letterhead, envelopes, and business cards.

Online printers are also great for bloggers, website owners, and affiliate marketers who do not wish to spend a bundle on offline branding and just need some small runs of business cards. I personally love using online printers because I can order in such low quantities like 50 or 100 business cards instead of if you went to print shop where the minimum order may be 250 or 500 cards.

There are a lot of options out there for online printers and services, so be sure to check them out. There are also a lot of different features and upgrades that you can have done to your print job like getting rouded corner cards, glossy cards, etc. See what the options are and go with what works best for you!

Dorm Room Biz July Earnings and other ramblings

It’s about that time for me to do I know I am late on this but here is the monthly income earnings report for the past month of July [anyways]. Throughout July, I earned money through the following revenue streams:

Market Leverage - $27.55
CashCrate - $7.88
Sponsored Reviews - $9.75
Text Link Ads - $25.48
Google Adsense - $15.71
ReviewMe - $5.00
Blogrolled - $11.00
Totaling: $102.37

Very close to the $100/month mark again this past month. I had a few different opportunities to make some more money this past month through Dorm Room Biz by doing more paid reviews and sponsored posts, but with being really busy at work, taking a few days off to go to the beach, and now with my desktop computer messed up, I haven’t had the motivation to blog when I get home from work. However, I want to get that changed back around to continue to increase the earnings during August. My goal is to reach $150 for the month if not more.

This past month also saw 20 posts with about 25 comments. The most popular post for the month being Should you show your Categories and Archives within your sidebar?

In other news…

The hard drive in my desktop computer is completely fried and dead. I had to buy a new one last night and will be installing tonight. Hopefully I will have an operational desktop computer by Monday with programs reinstalled. Luckily, as things started to get screwed up, I moved all of my files that was stored on my computer to my external hard drive. However, I did not get a chance to make backup and archive files of my emails - so I have lost pretty much all of my client emails for my website design business and all of my emails related to eBay. My eBay emails aren’t a big deal too much because most of that stuff is backed up through eBay yet loosing all my client emails is a big problem! So…lesson learned…constantly back up your files AND email!

LOOKING FOR SPONSORS! I am compiling sponsors for the upcoming contest here at Dorm Room Biz. If you have any ideas or would like to sponsor something of your own (EntreCard credits, books, money, gift cards, anything) please get at me - chris @ dorm-room-biz.com.

Other big news is that I earlier this week I became a PowerSeller on eBay. That basically means that for 3 consecutive months I had sales over $3000 total. I am happy about this because it opens up more opportunities for me such as better search placement with eBay searches, access to the PowerSellers product sourcing area, and more! Now I just need to keep it up and grow my sales each month!

Finally, I have my new business bank account set up! I am excited about this because I can start to keep better track of my expenses and income. All of my blogging, eBay, and web design related money will flow into this account. I am also waiting on my sales and use tax number and certificate to arrive. This will help me secure products for eBay at discounted prices and tax free; which is nice!

*****
More posts to come soon. However, keep a little more up to date with me by following me on Twitter. I try to use Twitter while at work and interact with people, so follow me and start talking!

Marketing Gets Zoomed To The Next Level With Uzoom

If you are into marketing your website, looking to provide great customer service, or just want to know who is visiting your site, then you need to consider Uzoom as a product for you to use. Uzoom is a provider of customer support chat and visitor tracking software based out of Hilton Head, SC. The Uzoom software includes the capability to put together a chat console and visitor tracking features. With the service you will be able to:

• Live tracking console to view customers on your website.
• Easy to invite customers to chat and for operators to accept chat requests.
• Know where in the world your customers are.
• Identify repeat customers and when they first visited your site.
• Find the last page customers came from. If they came from a search engine it will display which engine and what keywords they used. It will also break down whether it was a paid or an organic placement.
• Find the exact page your customer is on, in live time.
• Find how long the customer’s session has been.

If you are curious as to what makes Uzoom better than some of its competition in the chat software market, then I suggest you check out their comparison page. They have a great breakdown of the features of their service and what others do not have. Without trying it or looking too deep into comparing it, it appears that they do reign supreme on the features side of things.

You are probably thinking that a service like this wold have to cost an arm and a leg, well you are only half right. If you are interested in trying out the service and being able to use it on just one website with one customer service operator, then you can run a 30 day trial for free. However, if you want to go deeper and really get into the many uses of the service, you are going to need more than 30 days to try everything out. the first pay plan, named the Professional Plan is priced at $59.00/month - this will give you the ability to use the service with 2 different websites and have up to 5 operators.

Now I being a one day show like myself or just a small business, you may not find a need to shell out that kind of monthly price, so only do it if you are incredibly serious about ramping up your level of customer service and want to offer chat support. Otherwise, if you just want to track basic information about your visitors (location, length of stay, where they came from, etc) then you may be well off using a free service such as Google Analytics.

BlogMastermind Program Launches Tomorrow - Watch the Videos Today!

Yaro Starak, creater of the Blog Mastermind Program will be reopening his blog training program tomorrow, Tuesday, at approximately 10 AM EST USA time! If you have not been following the news that has been generating at other sites like John Chow, ProBlogger, or anywhere else, this is going to be an opportunity that you want to jump on to get serious about blogging. I have been following Yaro’s blog, Entrepreneurs Journey, since pretty close to when he started it and have learned a lot from him in terms of blogging, marketing, and strategies. I saw how effective and incredible his first launch was and am excited that he is going to be reopening the program. This time, it will be open to anyone who subscribes and it will not be closed.

To learn about the program and Yaro, you need to check out these videos. These are just a sampling of the kind of work that Yaro puts together for his Blog Mastermind course students.  These two videos are on how Yaro makes money from blogging and how much money he makes. If you don’t believe in buying any online products or courses, you should definitely think again about this one. The tips that bloggers like Shoemoney and John Chow publish are helpful, the articles that Darren of ProBlogger rights are insightful and full of experience, but Yaro’s program takes you through the step by step process to be successful.

Yaro also just released an interview that he did with a former BlogMastermind student of his who is now a million dollar blogger! That is INSANE! You won’t want to miss this interview with Alborz Fallah.

It’’s time to make serious money from your blog. Get help, join the Blog Mastermind mentoring program.

Toilet Paper Entrepreneur Guest Post

Hey Everybody! Just a quick note for now - I wrote a guest post for The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur blog that went live this past Friday. Check out the post of some different tips for student entrepreneurs.

Here’s a quick quote from it:

College is a time for learning, living, experimenting, starting a business, and having fun. Yes, I said starting a business. Although the other things are all good, starting a business while in college is probably one of the most important choices can make in your 4 or 5 year college career…or maybe even 6 for the slower ones out there! As a student, you get used to a few different things: not having a bunch of money to throw around, eating as cheaply as possible, living in cramped quarters, and making what you have work. So, I hope that sounds like the perfect time to you to open a business – because it is!

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