Career Women Coaching

Owning a Web Business

Owning a Web business is well within reach for most people.  Over 6 million businesses are started each year and a large percentage of those are based online.   

Most websites don't make it. 

Yet, the reality is that more than 90% of all Internet start-ups end in failure in the first 120 days.  They close up shop before earning enough to cover their costs, but luckily, most websites are started with very minimal expenses.  That means there's not much at stake if it doesn't succeed.  In other words, the risk is very low, especially compared to the potential reward.

Facebook was started by one guy in a college dorm room and is now worth billions of dollars.  Pinterest was started by three friends in an apartment and now has an estimated worth of over a billion dollars.  Craigslist was started by one guy and is now worth billions.  eBay was started by one guy in San Jose, CA.  It now owns dozens of other sites, including PayPal, and has a market value of around $60 billion.

The trait of most successful start-ups is that they targeted a very small niche, at least in the beginning.  This allowed them to focus their limited resources on a much smaller audience.  It also allowed them to provide very targeted products and services to make their customers happy.

Another trait shared by most successful start-ups is a powerful customer value proposition.  Your value proposition is what sets you apart from the competition and why someone would choose you over them.

Facebook is a great example for showing the power of a good value proposition because they succeeded in knocking MySpace off the social media pedestal when no one thought it was possible.  Facebook was highly adaptive.  They were one of the first companies to provide an open API (Application Programmer Interface), which allowed outside companies to use their data.  This gave rise to games like Farmville and MafiaWars, as well as social dating sites and a whole slew of other party services.

The simplicity, speed, exclusivity and adaptability of Facebook combined to create a very powerful customer value proposition, one that MySpace hasn't been able to overcome.  You can learn from successful start-ups and model their traits.

It's very important to understand your goals and motivations.  Sit down and write out your personal goal for starting a Web business.  There is no wrong answer.  It's purely on what's important to you.

Source:  J P Stonestreet: The Web Startup Roadmap: Navigate Your Way to a Successful Online Business

You can also use websites to draw people toward those products or services you offer online and off-line. 

For example, I have several websites focused on what's important to my prospective customers.  Here are four online blogs where I provide free self-coaching tips to: leaders and emerging leaders, career women, Baby Boomers and everyone else.

Because only one percent of the workforce can afford professional coaching services, I also provide low-cost self-coaching books; at prices so low that as many people as possible are able to afford and use them in their personal and professional lives.

Here are some of these self-coaching books delivered to your smart phone, tablet, eReader, and computer or via low-cost paperback editions. 

  Ask the Coach (ebook editions and paperback) 

  When Doing It All Won't Do: A Self-Coaching Guide for Career Women ( ebook editions) 

 When Doing It All Won't Do: A Self-Coaching Guide for Career Women--Workbook Edition (paperback only)

 Women and Time (ebook and paperback) 

 Women, Know Thyself: The most important knowledge is self-knowledge.  (paperback and ebook editions) 

 Decoding the Executive Woman's Dress Code (FREE ebooks editions) 

 Books for Boomers: Reviews & Coaching Tips (FREE ebook editions) 

 Boomer Retirement Life Tips (ebook editions) 

Self-Coaching Websites: 

 

http://www.CoachedtoSuccess.info

http://www.CoachedtoSuccess.com 

http://www.CoachingTip.com or send leadership tips to your Kindle for $.99/month: http://amzn.com/B0036B9SWQ 

http://www.CareerWomenCoaching.com 

http://www.SoBabyBoomer.com or send Baby Boomer Tips to your Kindle for $.99/month: http://www.amazon.com/So-Baby-Boomer-Life-Tips/dp/B0036B9WS6/ 

http://www.SelfAssessmentCenter.com 

http://www.Ask-Know-Do.com  

https://www.facebook.com/CoachedtoSuccess.info

http://twitter.com/johnagno

http://www.businesssuccesscoach.net/john-agno-press-kit/ (press kit)   

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They Busily Cover a Career Woman's Back at Bustle.com

If you go to www.Bustle.com, you will find a sleekly designed website with headlines.  Its loosely female-oriented articles cover topics ranging from evergreen style tips to celebrity gossip with a dash of hard news.  To a large degree, the articles consist of aggregation: a Bustle writer finds a piece news that interests her and summarizes it for Bustle's readers...just like we provide self-coaching tips for career women at www.CareerWomenCoaching.com.

Bustle's articles are modest, but the ambitions of its founder, a young Silicon Valley entrepreneur named Bryan Goldberg, are not.  Goldberg, who is thirty, is not a traditional publisher.  Six years ago, at the age of 24, he and a few friends started Bleacher Report, a sports website that, in 2012, they sold to Turner Broadcasting for more than two hundred million dollars.  Bleacher Report's success was a striking example of the new economics of media.

Goldberg wasn't a reader of women's publications before he started one, but he considers himself an expert in "markets and audiences."  For the most part, Bustle's editorial purview will be determined by it writers; from the group of young women that is Bustle's intended readership, those aged eighteen to thirty-four.

The economic facts about female spending power:

Women control as much as 70% of household purchases.  That is why "Bustle's for modern women in their twenties," Goldberg said.  "Eighteen to thirty-four, but really in their twenties.  It's for modern women with busy life styles."  These are professional hard-working women with great careers that they are proud of.  Goldberg says, "Some are young moms; who are short on time, long on interest."

Goldberg said, "And that's the common thread between women in the professional world and stay-at-home moms.  They're very busy.  There's always bustle in their lives."

Source: The New Yorker, September 23, 2013

The site offers career advice and book reviews, as we do at www.CareerWomenCoaching.com, where all the content is driven by women and we hope they will review our self-coaching guides written for these busy career women:

"When Doing It All Won't Do: A self-coaching guide for career women" by Barbara McEwen & John G. Agno.  

Purchase and download for the Nook eReader at Barnes & Noble  (.ePub ebook format for Nook and iPad tablets) 

Purchase and download at Amazon for the Kindle Edition -(.mobi format for Kindle eReaders and tablets)    

Purchase and download all eReader formats at Smashwords  (Various formats, except the paperback Workbook Edition, are available) 

 Barbara A. McEwen: When Doing It All Won't Do: A Self-Coaching Guide for Career Women--Workbook Edition (paperback)

 John G Agno: Women, Know Thyself: The most important knowledge is self-knowledge.

 John G. Agno: Women and Time 

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Blogging Dads

The hapless, bumbling father is a stock character in product marketing. He makes breakfast for dinner and is incapable of handling, or sometimes even noticing, a soggy diaper. He tries desperately to hide the crumb-strewn, dirt-streaked evidence of his poor parenting before the mother gets home.

This is an image that many fathers who attended the Dad 2.0 Summit — a meeting of so-called daddy bloggers and the marketers who want to reach them — have come to revile. They are proud to be involved in domestic life and do not want to serve as the comic foil to the supercompetent mother.

In the past, consumer-product marketers weren’t all that concerned with what fathers thought — women, after all, make the majority of purchasing decisions for households. But men are catching up: In 2012 men spent an average of $36.26 at the grocery store per trip, compared with $27.49 in 2004, according to data from Nielsen. Companies see an opportunity to reach a new demographic.

The dad bloggers, for their part, are using their influence to change the way marketers portray them. To put it another way, while the mom space is crowded with players, the dad space has room for more. So there is big money to be made, both by companies looking at fathers as consumers and by daddy bloggers looking to ride a wave of brand sponsorship just as mommy bloggers have.

Source: The New York Times, February 24, 2013

 John Agno: When Doing It All Won't Do: A Self-Coaching Guide for Career Women

 Barbara A. McEwen: When Doing It All Won't Do: A Self-Coaching Guide for Career Women--Workbook Edition

 John G. Agno: Women and Time 

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