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Before becoming a full-time Entrepreneur online and creating many successful business exclusively online, I worked for companies such as Andrew Corporation as a Telecommunications Electrician, CO-OP as a Haz-Mat Certified Chemical Driver, and Wal-Mart Distribution Center as Orderfilling/Receiving Operations Manager. I had the priviledge of experiencing both sides of the coin, as an employee and as an employer in the “corporate” world. When I became a full-time Entrepreneur online, I’ve been mostly “employer” for the last half-decade. I’ve employed hundreds of people from across multiple countries around the world. I’ve hired and I’ve fired.

Think About This: How many people have actually dreamed of leaving their job to go do what they really wanted to do? The truth is not many people have actually left that “comfort-blanket,” that “safety-umbrella” of the “day job,” unless they’ve been forced out by down-sizing, overhead budget cuts, layoffs, etc…

A lot of it has to do with stress from being overwhelmed with your current workload and/or job. Add into the mix the fear of taking the leap and leaving the comfortable world you know into the Entrepreneurial Abyss and there’s a lot of concern there, isn’t there?

Here’s a few tips from me that you can use to combat this.

1. Money isn’t everything – Actually, it is. People always say “money is no object to me.” Well, if it wasn’t then we’d all be doing what we love, now wouldn’t we? Large paychecks and “benefits” from Corporations and Companies has made people soft. It’s led everyone, by the masses, into a certain type of lifestyle. What’s even scarier is that a lot of people put themselves into situations that their regular paychecks can’t even support. Listen, if you are truly serious and considering taking the plunge, then hear me out.

Start looking at your finances right now as you would a regular company. I’m serious, practice makes perfect and that’s what you will need to be – Efficient. Right now, can you reduce your fixed expenses? Can you really build in a steady income stream? Is your debt lowered to equity ratio? All these things might seem trivial right now but believe me, when you are the “head-honcho,” they are going to become very important.

Now you can do these things by reducing your expenses and liabilities by paying down or off debt, especially credit card debt. You can build up your cash reserves so you have enough to cover at least six months of expenses. If possible, find a way to get a steady, dependable income stream, perhaps via your spouse’s job or a pension. Start putting a plan in place right now. Depending on your situation, you are going to have to make enough income to meet your needs AND put away for savings. Unfortunately, back when I started I didn’t have the luxury of having any other income coming in except what I generated for my family.

2. Stick and Stones may break your bones – But don’t ever let anyone hurt you verbally or emotionally. Start building a “thick-skin” right now because you’re going to need it. There are assholes in the world and you’ll be running into a few of those assholes soon. They may even be your closest friends or worse, family members. Leaving your job is a big jump. One that is full of significant financial and emotional challenges. You’ll put off a different type of “aura” and others will pick up on it. It will likely also impact not only you but your spouse/significant other and your family. So it needs to be discussed to ensure you can get their support on both fronts.

My advice is to just not take shit from anyone. Period. If they don’t support you and they give you a negative vibe, cut them from your life. If you don’t have the nerve to do that now, then enjoy the drama they’ll put on you for as long as you let them.

You can combat this by discussing what’s going on with you and your new venture to your immediate family members. On the emotional side, it will be a lot easier to overcome your fears and insecurities if you have people close to you cheering you on and encouraging you. And on the financial side, you need their help to trim expenses and/or provide additional sources of income.

For many of us, it’s very important what our friends and coworkers think of us. And making a major change that may affect our status in the eyes of others (and ourselves) may be concerning. But you can’t let others decide how you will live and which path you will follow. First, it’s unlikely many people are really thinking that much about you. They are thinking about themselves. And, those who are your friends will support you. Those who are not are not worth listening to.

3. Always Plan Ahead – This is just common sense. However, the American standard is to “get-by” or live “paycheck-to-paycheck” and it’s almost becoming an adopted nature among the masses. Dare to be different because originality is boring and as an Entrepreneur you are going to have to develop creative brain rituals that keeps you thinking outside-the-box versus from within it. Get your timing right and make sure you look at the timing of your exit. See if it’s possible to exit after either the annual bonus payout or when options are vested. Just be sure the time is “right.”

Once you’ve made the decision to move forward, put an action plan in place. Put down dates by which you will accomplish things that will lead you to your goal. Be specific and all-encompassing. Include a budget based on projected income and expenses, so you know you can survive and then thrive financially. Just make sure you get started early. I had a 6-month plan all laid out (which I didn’t follow very well) when I came online full-time. I would suggest getting yourself a 1-year layout. Time flies on the Net!

Going Forward – Just be ready for life’s challenges and when it throws you a curve ball, knock it out of the freakin park! As you move toward your transition it will be normal and natural to have doubts and fears. So it’s crucial to stay motivated. One way is to lay out your vision of how your life will be and what your new mission is. Then review that on a daily basis. Subscribe to sites that either help you learn more about your passion or help you think positive thoughts. Go to these regularly.

Now, go. Execute your plan. Pursue your dream!

Take a look at this infographic from Unbounce and let me what you think in the comments. Let me know what your business marketing and networking has been like on Facebook and LinkedIn.

This poll really is not breaking any new ground for Facebook as they have had a long and troubled past regarding privacy changes involving new products such as Beacon, frictionless sharing, Instant Personalization, and Places, which all made headlines for privacy concerns by users. It’s also fair to say that the constantly changing Privacy Policy and Terms of Service make people wonder how secure their information is. Despite all these negative things said about Facebook, it continues to grow every day. People keep on sharing personal information and photos on a website they supposedly don’t trust. In July 2010 Facebook claimed  500 million users and since then that has almost doubled.  People have uploaded approximately 300 million photos on it daily for the three months ended 3/31.

So the information privacy concerns about just information does not seem to be too much of an issue, but the fact that there is a lack of trust while making purchases through Facebook is surprising and maybe a little troubling both for advertisers and for Facebook itself as it rolls out new services as it looks for growth to keep those investors happy. One proactive way Facebook has addressed the confidence issues has been to offer Facebook credits to buy virtual items in games, rent movies, and possibly pay to promote your own posts in the near future. As an advertiser, it is a bit troubling to think that there are that many people who do not trust the ads they are shown. It affects many aspects of campaigns and performance.

Some people are worried about Facebook because of malicious software and clickjacking scams, but Facebook is pretty proactive in dealing with these issues. While it’s true Facebook has had some encounters with hacking before, Facebook has pretty good security. Facebook has also offered secure SSL encryption since 2011. So while it’s true that many people are concerned with the privacy of their personal information, it does not really seem to be changing habits or the way people use the site.

After hearing of the news, I went to the app store to download, and it’s no where to be found.  At this point I’m not sure if they quietly rolled it out then pulled it once it started making news.  A blog in New Zealand was able to get some screenshots:

No official word yet as to what’s going on, but none-the-less a cool tool for any Internet Marketer out there using Facebook to leverage traffic.  If anyone has been able to download it, please let me know in the comments section below!

But Mama said they were my magic shoes. Mama said they take me anywhere.

Yea, with claims like, right smack-dab in the middle of a lawsuit if you’re not careful.

In a complaint filed Wednesday in federal court, the Federal Trade Commission said Skechers hyped advertising for its Shape-ups line with unsubstantiated tag lines such as “Get in Shape Without Setting Foot in a Gym.” The company also failed to disclose that a chiropractor featured in one of its ads is married to a Skechers marketing executive and was paid to conduct studies on the shoes’ performance.

Skechers agreed to pay $40 million to settle charges that it made unfounded claims about the benefits of its toning shoes by asserting that they help people lose weight, tone lower body muscles and even combat heart disease.

The FTC expects the settlement, which has not been finalized, to be its largest ever in terms of the amount of money refunded to consumers. The agreement also involves refunds for the company’s Resistance Runner, Toners and Tone-ups shoes.

“Skechers put its foot in its mouth by making unsubstantiated claims,” said David Vladeck, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection.

Skechers denied the allegations and defended its advertising as “appropriate.” In a statement, the company said it chose to settle to avoid protracted legal battles that would have imposed “an unreasonable burden” on its business.

The company previously had disclosed that it would pay a one-time settlement of $45 million. While most of that money would go toward the FTC settlement, the remaining $5 million will settle related lawsuits involving the District of Columbia and 43 states, including Maryland and Virginia, the attorneys general in those states announced Wednesday. Another $5 million will be paid for class-action attorney fees, the company said.

The FTC also alleged that Skechers made deceptive claims about its Resistance Runner, Toners and Tone-ups shoes.

Consumers who purchased any of these toning shoes can file for refunds through the FTC (www.ftc.gov/skechers) or through a court-approved class-action lawsuit.

The FTC/Skechers settlement is part of a broader agreement, also being announced today, resolving a multi-state investigation that was led by the attorneys general of Tennessee and Ohio, and included AGs from 42 other states and the District of Columbia.

The FTC settlement also bars Skechers from making any further claims for its toning shoes about health/fitness-related benefits unless they are true and backed by scientific evidence.

In announcing the FTC settlement with Skechers, David Vladeck, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, said: “The FTC’s message, for Skechers and other national advertisers, is to shape up your substantiation or tone down your claims.” He added that FTC standards regarding advertising claims are very clear.

You can read the whole cluster-f#k here.

The funding will allow Pinterest to continue improving its service and expanding its community globally.  The investment also marks the start of a strategic partnership between Rakuten and Pinterest to help expand in Japan and into Rakuten’s 17 other global markets. Pinterest says the additional capital will enable it to ‘improve its service’ and expand globally. The company stresses that the Rakuten investment is the start of a strategic partnership that will help it expand not only in Japan but also the 17 other markets Rakuten operates in.

Some interesting information I dug up:

• Before this round, Pinterest had raised a total of $37.5 Million
• Sources have stated the Rakuten investment values Pinterest at a little over $1 Billion
• Wall Street Journal says $100 Million with $1.5 Billion Valuation

Ben Silbermann, co-founder and CEO of Pinterest, said: “Our goal is to help people discover things they love, by connecting people through their shared interests. Bringing Rakuten on board gives us an amazing opportunity to move a step closer to this goal.”   

Wow, tons of buy-outs and investments going on right now. Pinterest has now raised $137.5 Million. I’m now curious to see how they will attempt to monetize their business.

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Many understand that click through rate (CTR) is king.  Publishers and advertising networks reward advertisers who yield the highest effective CPM (eCPM) with large amounts of quality volume (the first couple impressions).  While we want to use images that garner a solid CTR we want to take into consideration the overall flow of the campaign.

Your creative should contain similar text/images from your landing page.  This may seem like a no brainier to some, it’s a very important aspect to creating a campaign that returns a solid conversion rate.  Inside the Community we discuss a lot about “getting to know your market” and understanding how the demographic browses the Internet.

If your target market is females ages 35 – 45 it maybe beneficial to add a picture of one on your landing page.  You could include it as soon as the visitor lands on the page or when the visitor advances further through the site.  Keeping the flow gives the visitor an extra sense of security and they have more confidence when entering their information to become a successful lead or sale.

If promoting another product as an affiliate, the first thing I do when going to write creative copy is look at the landing page and use some of the headlines/text.  A high converting campaign that can be scaled will flow all the way through seamlessly.  Another trick to your copy is per-qualify the traffic a bit.  Since you’re interrupting them from browsing a website let them know how your product/service can benefit them.

It’s nice having a creative with a MASSIVE CTR but it’s also even nicer when you have one providing you 100% ROI.  Media buying can be very rewarding because of the scalability.  Focus on ROI early on and scale accordingly.  If you’re spending $100 a day and not making $200 then don’t scale up your spend.  Optimize your campaign by ensuring your creative/landing page flow seamlessly through the entire conversion process.

As the company marches towards a $100 billion valuation the clever folks over at Inc.com have created a “timeline style” infographic mapping out the growth from Facemash in 2003.  Check out this bad ass graphic:

Ok, so what the hell is it? The knowledge graph aims to include information within the SERPS inside the right column where you normally see maps or paid advertisements. The information that is imported into the SERPS is sourced from the World CIA Fact Book, Wikipedia, and other sites. Apparently, Google has been working on this feature for over two years and they have built a database with 500 million people, places and things. Within the graph, there are 3.5 billion defining attributes and connections that include related searches and other bits of information. Basically, Google has admitted that up til now, the search engine hasn’t really understood what the hell we have been typing into the google search box. The engine has been making an educated guess as to what it is we are looking for when we search. Needless to say, this should be interesting to interact with as the graph is rolled out.

Google, with implementation of the Knowledge Graph, aims to help searchers find exactly what they are looking for, instead of attempting to guess what you are typing inside the search box by the words/characters you type. Google aims to move from a search engine to a “knowledge engine”.

One thing I am left wondering…Why in the hell did they use the term GRAPH? Sounds a bit like Facebook’s Open Social GRAPH may have influenced the name? Google just can’t help themselves. They could have charged out the gates with an original name like, “The Knowledge Matrix”. Guess not.