I’ve written several articles about starting a bookkeeping business in recent months but an article I just read in the Sydney Morning Herald about the value of a bookkeeping business re-inforced a great reason to be in business for yourself. Capital Gains.
Yes, it can be hard to start a new business from scratch and yes, you may need to get out of your comfort zone to meet new people and share your story and yes, you may need to do some courses and learn some new skills, but the rewards are more freedom, flexibility, capital value and you might meet some great business owners and managers in the process.
I recently wrote about our MYOB Training students and how many of them want to start a bookkeeping business so I thought we would go through some of the costs involved.
Remember that these are the startup costs and you may incur more marketing costs as your business grows. Starting a bookkeeping business, like most other businesses, takes a little extra time, effort and money initially. You need to spend money on advertising so you get to speak to as many prospective clients as possible.
The more prospects (or leads) you speak to, the more you understand what bookkeeping clients want and also what you are able to help them with – and what you can’t or don’t want to.
I wrote last week about the importance of securing your website in-case you get hacked (it has happened to us several times so we have learnt from the mistakes!). I wrote about a free WordPress Plugin called BackWPup and now I have some WordPress training about how to update WordPress and install the backup plugin at the bottom of this blog post.
If you subscribe to this blog post and are reading this on email, click the heading to get to the online WordPress training video.
About WordPress
WordPress is an open source Content Management System (CMS) that enables you to make changes to your website and keep a blog. Both of these tasks make your website more relevant to Google and helps to increase your PageRank with the Google search algorithm.
Just like Windows, WordPress is regularly updated and kept current by the developers and there are thousands of plugins that can be installed to make your website more functional. The WordPress training video in this blog teaches you how to upgrade your WordPress website and install and activate a plugin.
WordPress Training and Free Templates
Our WordPress training course gives you all the tools to create and maintain your own website and it comes with lifetime student access so you can use it as a resource when you want to get more complicated with your online marketing strategy. With enough WordPress training and practice you can not only create and update your own website, but perform this work for other small businesses who need to get online.
Does that seem like a silly question? If you have a website that you have spent thousands of dollars creating and promoting, it would be quite a logical question.
WordPress is your new shop front
In my work running our online training courses I work with several different websites and different content creators each week. We create and modify existing written content, enrolment forms and training videos that demonstrate our popular MYOB training. I couldn’t even begin to count the total value in human hour terms.
The modern website for many businesses is like their shop front, it provides critical contact information plus information and examples of the services you provide or the products you sell. Have you thought about insuring it?
Hacking your WordPress website
I was speaking with a business owner in the construction industry last week to learn about his website woes. His website is built using WordPress, one of the most popular website design and blogging platforms in the world and like many popular things, WordPress site are prone to malicious attack. Their website was attacked by a hacker and hundreds of hours of design, writing, structure and marketing are now in jeopardy because of the attack.
Free WordPress Backup Plugin
Our online WordPress training course includes a section on a free WordPress backup plugin and this recent event highlights the importance of a backup strategy. The website plugin is called BackWPup (Back WordPress Up) and you can read all about it at the WordPress script site. 344,317 people have downloaded this plugin and it even allows you to create a backup to Dropbox.
While you are there, check out the thousands of other scripts that are also available for almost any conceivable tasks you would want to do at your website. You might start to feel empowered about even creating (even only with the words and pictures) your own website!
While we are on the topic of security, risk and insurance, you might want to check your website hosting service and learn exactly how and when they back your site up. It might not be as often as you think and it might be only the previous day.
If you are aware of internet marketing coupon and discount voucher sites then you have probably heard about Groupon and Living Social. These are massive companies in the United States that make an offer available to their subscribers from local companies that are willing to heavily discount to find new customers.
EzyLearn has a Professional Partner network of companies that provide specialist services around our online training courses (including rehabilitation companies, bookkeepers, accountants, recruitment companies and more) and we have decided not to use group buying sites because of the conditions they impose. If we offer a discount coupon we prefer to offer it directly to you or through our partner network.
Today you can use the Discount voucher code in this post to receive an instant discount for enrolment into the MYOB Training Courses. Remember, that we already offer 5 courses for the usual price of one course and LIFETIME student access as well as student community support and career support so you can find work using your new skills.
This discount voucher is available for a limited time and can end at any moment, but the great news is that you have access to the course for the rest of your working life once you enrol. It also comes with a 7-day money back guarantee if you are not completely satisfied.
Have you ever tried to use Google Maps to get directions to your next appointment? I had a recent experience that made me realise why Google Maps makes you street smart.
Many years ago when we had street directories we could see exactly where we needed to go. We could choose our own path based on our knowledge of the roads and of traffic patterns. Now Google gives you suggestions, but I am not sure they are always the best suggestions.
I’ve been using Google Maps to find local training companies around Sydney as well as computer shops, employment agencies, job network agencies and other companies in the career and recruitment fields so that I can tell them about our MYOB Bookkeeping Training Courses and bring them on board as partners. I know that many of us take it for granted these days, but I am reminded of how powerful our mobile phones and internet searching has become! I wrote about this for local business marketing back in 2010 in my personal blog.
I’ve gone to Google Maps on my Android Smartphone and searched for computer shops and up comes a map with a whole bunch of dots and placemarks (like in the image). If you click the place mark you get information about that business and can then call them directly from this information! Google users can also write reviews about your business so watch this space.
Click on the image to see it enlarged on your screen…
You also have the ability to get directions and this is the part that I always find interesting. Having grown up in Sydney I know how to get around and often I am presented with driving suggestions that I don’t agree with. When I use my gut instincts I end up getting to the destination on time and without frustration and I wanted to share this with you because I think it demonstrates that technology is only here to make our lives easier. We still have to make the right decisions regarding the information that technology gives us.
In the end your own experience will tell you which way to go and there is no better feeling than using and trusting in your own instincts. Google Maps makes you street smart because your own local knowledge is often better than that of a machine and it’s always good to trust your own instincts.
PS. It’s interesting to see a photo for JB Hi-Fi that appears to be from someone’s bedroom…
Every business owner makes decisions about how they want to grow the business and the different “channels to market” are discussed in strategic management textbooks regularly. In 2010 EzyLearn made an executive decision to build a Partner program so that other companies can benefit by working with us and our training courses and content.
We explored many options including affiliate marketing and in 2012 our line up of available partner plans has evolved completely. You can start with
some code which can go onto a page on your website and receive a commission for each sale,
you can have a new website commissioned with all the information about our online courses and an enrolment form where you receive the payments, or
you can plug right into the EzyLearn enrolment process and receive payments from the general public.
Lee and his team from PowerfulPoints has been helping executives of some of Australia’s largest companies fine tune their presentations using PowerPoint so that they are efficient and effective. If you are new to using PowerPoint you are probably not new to seeing a presentation where Microsoft PowerPoint has been used.
This seminar goes through the important aspect of creating a presenting using Microsoft PowerPoint. Learning how to use PowerPoint in our PowerPoint Training Course is one thing, but perfecting the art of being a presenter is a different story altogether.
If you are into new technology and you like to know what is going on there is one man who write regular blogs from his experiences working with new technology. His name is Seth Godin and he has over 123,000 Twitter followers. Whether you use Twitter or not, this man has a wide influence and many of his very short blogs are inspirational for business owners and anyone who wants to create something.
Seth wrote an article recently about the differences between Starfish and the long tail. If this is all starting to get a little weird don’t worry, these terms are used in Internet marketing circles to describe the business model you are in and we’re mentioning it here because it confirms our commitment to be the best at a handful of online training courses: Microsoft Office (Excel, Word, PowerPoint and Outlook), MYOB Accounting, and WordPress website design and blogging. There are many companies who promote courses online and that’s what they do, promote courses online, we try to be a little different and here’s why:
We offer a handful of courses and do them very well
Our courses come with LIFETIME membership
As a student you get new content without paying extra
Where possible we provide real life exercise files so you can work with the software
We launched the EzyLearn Q&A service as part of this commitment and it’s designed to do two things:
Provide existing students with an opportunity to ask questions about topics that may not be included in our course content
Increase the value of our training courses to students by keeping them current and relevant.
It seems that Google has brought back the magic of words. Why? Because they can be indexed and used in search results.
Can you index an image or a video? You can, but you need to index them using words.
You can find almost anything on Google but you need to use words to do it. When you click on a paid Google Adwords advertisement its usually due to the words the advertiser used to catch your attention. If you want to improve your Google organic search ranking you need to use the right “key”words on your website, they call that Search Engine Optimisation (or SEO).
Can someone in the Phillipines, India or Eastern Europe Write Like You?
You might be aware of the value of words these days because you need this skill to be effective in marketing your business online. The role of the copywriter is often undervalued because you can now hire someone in the Phillipines, India or Eastern Europe to write the content of your website or blog for a couple dollars per hour, but would you? After testing out individuals, copy-writing services and other international contracting companies we realise that the quality of the words we use and the ability to relate to other Australians is something only another Australian can truly do effectively. With all the talk about workers in developing countries taking jobs away from Australian workers, we realise that it’s their knowledge of Australian lingo, Australian tastes and Australian attitudes that makes their writing style truly Australian – and that makes it valuable to other Australians.
Work at Home
There is a way of getting good quality words for your website or blog for a reasonable price and that is by using a Virtual Assistant (sometimes called a remote worker, home worker or a remote contractor). There are some great writers out there who choose to work from home and if you use the services of an organisation like Virtually Yours you’ll find top quality writers and remote contractors with many other skills that are part of an organisation designed to find good virtual assistants and promote them as well as provide them with tools to be effective small business owners.
While we are on the topic I want to share the success of Terry from Ramancorp. He operates a small wholesale business supplying a range of framing, hanging, display and packaging materials and he lists them all on his website. Because he has gone to the trouble of providing as much information as possible he uses some very niche words that attract customer looking for the exact product they need. As a result Terry is getting a good amount of NEW customers EVERY month without having to pay a cent in Google Adwords advertising.
Words are Valuable in Resumes, Website and LinkedIn
Words are just as valuable in your resume so the next time you think about what kind of job you are looking for, think about the words that the advertiser might use to attract the right candidate and make sure your resume has these words in it.
WordPress is used as a Content Management System (CMS) for millions of small business websites around the world. WordPress is like the Microsoft Word for Websites and we have a course that will teach you how to use it as a blogger, article and news writer all the way up to a WordPress administrator. In fact at the end of this course you will learn enough to get your own website up and running as well as help others create and maintain their own website.
The best part of this course is that it entitles you to the EzyLearn LIFETIME membership feature, so when we update it with new content about marketing your website you can access the new information for no extra cost. For more information and to enrol, visit our WordPress course website.
What’s included in our WordPress Online Course (you can click these links if you are an existing student):
With Administrator priveleges you are now able to affect global aspects of your websites appearance. You can also arrange the website layout and user access permission.
Background colours, and header images are just the beginning. Learn to install free and premium themes and then customise them using widgets, plugins, custom menus and RSS newsfeeds
Your website hosting control panel provides you with stats about your website usage, but most importantly your email and other applications. Learn how to manage your email accounts and email access.
We have all the training videos and they will be uploaded shortly (no extra cost for you to access). Syndication gives you the power to be many places at once. When you write a blog that article can be made to appear in your readers inbox, on other websites and of course at your blog.
Google have a range of tools to help you gain exposure on the world wide web and one of these tools is called Feedburner. This tool will enable you to have your own email list subscribers attached to your blog.
Can I make my own site?
Yes. We’ve thought of that too. When you enrol for the Online WordPress course, choose the option that provides you with a student website hosting account.
We are building the Remote Contractor network of work from home contractors and at the same time, we are recruiting for online marketing consultants. You don’t have to be an expert though, simply go searching through Australian job forums, social networks (on Facebook) and comments on Twitter accounts where you think it would be good to mention EzyLearn’s online courses.
All you need to do is open up and Excel spreadsheet, and copy and paste the hyperlinks of website forums and social networks (like facebook groups) into each row of the spreadsheet.
We’ll go through the list you create and if it looks like a good list, and we pick you as an EzyLearn online marketer, we’ll pay you to inform the Australia jobseekers about our online courses. Simple.
Have any questions? Send an email to Richard at sales@ezylearn.com.au.
If you mentioned the word Webmaster 5 years ago you would imagine someone slightly geeky, who drinks cola, has thick rimmed glasses and talks incessantly about the latest technology and gadgets. Things have changed. The technology used to create websites was the domain of nerds who enjoyed writing code and getting dirty with technology using programs like FrontPage, DreamWeaver, Flash etc, but now it’s the domain of staff members, marketing people and remote contractors (Virtual Assistants who work from home). Why has it changed?
The most significant aspects of website design are:
The template (or theme) that’s used including colour scheme, branding and navigation
Thousands of designers create templates that you can purchase for $20 to $300
Once a template or theme is designed and setup the content management is the same (just like using Microsoft Word)
Writing articles, creating extra pages and adding to your navigation becomes as easy as selecting a check box and picking a category.
So is it really something that you could do?
wordpress themes included in Webmaster course
Have you heard about WordPress, Google, Facebook and Twitter? Can you use your computer to access your email, do internet banking and accessing other online services? Have you heard about or used PayPal? If you have, then you are at least familiar with some of the tools used by a modern webmaster. Combining these new online marketing tools and WordPress CMS driven websites you can get busy and start creating.
The Internet, smart phones, cloud computing and VoIP are making the world a smaller place and allows people to work from home but still remain digitally connected. There has been a significant shift towards remote contracting (virtual assistants) and the concept of mums working from home is now commonplace.
If you want to come on the Webmaster journey with EzyLearn we have the WordPress course. It’s a step-by-step system of setting up, creating content and images, building the contents and then promoting your own business using all the tools we’ve mentioned in this blog post. Best of all you’ll have an internet guru educating and coaching you each step of the way until your website is complete so not only will you have your own website and tools to promote it, but you’ll have the skills to promote yourself to other businesses and help them with their website management.
With the changes that we’re making to our website it’s no surprise you can enrol into the Excel or MYOB online courses for 50% off (half price). We are upgrading our website using a fantastic community blog system call WordPress and if you receive this information via email, then you probably already know it. As a result we are able to combine many of our diverse services under one location and that includes the ability for you to purchase our online courses at discounted prices using discount vouchers.
Discount vouchers are simply a string of numbers that you enter into our shopping system to reveal a discount we are making this offer available to you until the end of this month. The discount voucher code that is available to you between today and 30th May is 888, and it entitles you to half price off our MYOB or Microsoft Excel courses. If you want to take advantage of the discount, go to our online training enrolment page and purchase an online course. Where you see the screen below, enter your code (888) and click update to see the new discounted price.
discount coupon for online training courses in Excel and MYOB
You might also be aware that we started a new opportunity for anyone to make promoting our online courses via a method called Affiliate Marketing. This enables you to promote a special code via facebook, email, twitter or anywhere that you can tell people about us, and if your friend enrols into a course after following your special link, you get $30! This system is managed by a completely independent company called clixgalore and if you’d like to learn more, visit our affiliate program page for MYOBcourse.com.au.
Stay tuned in the forthcoming weeks for information about ways that you can work from home using your computer skills as a remote contractor.
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EzyLearn's Career Academy
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Xero is a great bookkeeping program for tradies who are on the go and using their phones (or a tablet) all the time. From receipts scanning to creating quotes and invoices, receiving payments and keeping track of project costs.
bookkeepercourse.com.au/produ…
Video 1: The WordPress Website Introduction Resource
