So, that thing that happens at the end of December is coming. You know what I’m talking about. It’s the thing that every year makes me threaten to convert to Judaism and every year, Jamie reminds me that the Jews don’t have it any better than we do.

Do Buddhists have the fat dude in the red suit?

Anyway, since you have to shop anyway, you may as well shop from a fellow IttyBiz, yeah? Here’s some awesome stuff to get you started. (For those of you into conspiracy theories, none of these are affiliate links. I’m just doing this because I’m cool.)

IttyBiz Featured Picks: People I Adore

One of my favorite people in the world is Michelle from Little Shop of Beauty. Michelle makes hand-made bath and body stuff. Like, really handmade. As in, with her hands.

(If you’re a guy, stop reading this and just buy a gift certificate. I can’t think of a woman I’ve ever known who wouldn’t DIE to pick her own stuff from here.) If you’re a woman, you’ll appreciate that there are more than 500 scents available in the Custom Beauty Bar, as well as a lot of pre-fab stuff if you’re not down with choosing.

A couple examples, you ask?

Almond Cheesecake Tart: A scrumptious fragrance that begins with top notes of sweet cheesecake, graham crackers with middle notes of tart almonds and lemons that ends with notes of vanilla and cake bake.

Spicy Little Number: This luscious blend of smooth cinnamon sugar dough, cream cheese frosting and brown sugar buttercream will have you feeling playfully coquettish all day (and night) long!

Winter Hug: Sweet, buttery apples, topped with cinnamon, nutmeg and sugar. So warm and comforting!

And there are over 500 more. I can’t make this stuff up, people. Once you try handmade cosmetics that are made fresh to order, you will never, ever buy any shit from a drugstore again. (She’s Canadian but ships worldwide.)

Now that I’m done eating my body butter, let’s move on, shall we?

Vivian from Blend Creations rocks my world. She and her husband work from home and have a 2-year-old boy named Jack. And they’re in Canada. Basically, they’re us but better looking. They make stainless steel jewelry. Really, really awesome jewelry. I bought this one for my mom and she just about lost her shit when I gave it to her. They also do stuff for cool boys.

Also interesting is their Metal For Monsters collection where they teamed up with a bunch o’ artists to create some supercool stuff with a chunk of proceeds going to UNICEF.

Got dogs? Got people with dogs? You need one of these. These cool dog collars are so goddamn awesome I have considered buying a dog just so I can get one of these for every day of the week. They have just generally cool collars, but then they have custom ones, “the Manolo Blahnik of dog collars”. Seriously. I promise you, anybody will sleep with you if you buy their dog one of these collars.

(Also cool to note is that Alisha employs a handful of local textile artists who were booted out of work when the economy went to hell. Like, single moms and stuff. I have so much respect for this woman it’s ridiculous.)

For babies, little girls, pregnant people and women you just happen to like, we have Baby Pash. Cashmere baby blankets, and other cashmere and silk blankies and wraps for pretty much whoever wants them. For babies that will not accept Walmart.

I have five of these. Like, actually five. I don’t think I can endorse them any more highly than that. Oh, wait. Yes, I can. I’m giving my mom one of the grown-up ones for Christmas.

Jennifer Louden is my favorite author ever. When I was knocked up and in a shelter and generally poor and disenfranchised, I checked one of her books out of the library, thinking it would be an escapist piece of fluff. You know, kind of like reading decorating magazines. But instead of promoting a bunch of feel-good stuff that I could never afford, I actually FELT BETTER. Imagine that. Anyway, flash forward a few years and turns out, she’s friends with the Havinator and SHAZZAM! She friends me on Facebook and I wet myself for four days straight.

Yeah, she was on Oprah. And yeah, we’re totally Facebook friends. So there. Whatever. Buy her books for someone you like. But not for someone you don’t like because they don’t deserve them. In times like these, your loved ones really can’t afford not to have a big fat dose of Jen.

And Amy. Amy is quietly breathtaking in her accomplishments. She lives in Michigan and homeschools two sets of twin boys. These factors alone should qualify her for sainthood. But she’s also running an IttyBiz and I’ve watched her do it from the ground up and I am so fucking proud of her it makes me want to cry. She makes puppet theaters and we’re going to get one for Jack when he figures out that puppets aren’t mittens.

Get one for the budding artist in your life. At this price you would be insane not to.

Other Nifty Looking Stuff

OK, you know when you’re reading some socially responsible magazine, and they tell you about some new initiative that helps women in business in developing countries or locally sustainable stuff or whatever? (Usually bracelets or baskets.) And then you check out their stuff and it’s either a.) ugly as shit or b.) so expensive that it makes you wheeze? Yeah, Boutiko ain’t that. Gorgeous stuff and prices that are low enough that you won’t die, but high enough that the people making them are making a decent wage. Isn’t that nice?

The seriously cool thing is that they have a little legend for their products that shows if they’re recycled or local or organic or whatever.

AWESOME. I want the bags. And the aprons. And everything else. It’s entirely possible that I’m moving to England for the shopping.

In other pet stuff, we have portraits. And holy pet portraits, Batman! For pet-lovers or for the pets themselves, these babies will rock your furry little socks. Since we’ve got so many to choose from, check out the portfolios to see whose stuff you like the best.

Jandi Small seems to specialize in making your pet look likeable but real. For example, if she were to paint my cats there might be an outside chance someone might want to adopt them. Check these out.

Susan Donley breaks out of traditional puppy and kitten mode by doing other pet paintings as well. Like, even parrots! And let’s face it — nobody takes on a parrot for 100 years without liking the thing, you know what I’m saying?

Also doing pet portraits is Pups in Pastel, which specializes in — wait for it! — dogs. Pastel ones. This woman knows how to kick Unique Sales Proposition ass. Killer.

OK, these guys make cool baby clothes. (And other peoples’ clothes, but we’re talking about babies right now.) Clothes for baby Democrats. Now, their O Baaa Ma onesies are pretty awesome, but here’s the really cool part. During the lead up to the election, they ran a “Buy One Swing One” campaign. For every O Baaa Ma onesie you bought, they would send one free to the person of your choice, as long as they lived in a swing state. The creativity of this act blows my fucking mind.

Durtbagz makes bagz. We got a bunch of shirts from them as delightful swag when they changed their designs and it was fun and good. These are for young people and cool people and, well, just go to the site. You’re either the type of person who thinks this is hilarious, or you’re not.

I love Julie at SpecialtyCards4U. She does, I don’t know, cards and stuff. But it’s more than just cards. It’s cards and tags and wine stuff and just about everything people who geek out on paper would love. Like, say, me. If you know paper people, they’ll eat this up.

Somebody who lives in this house but forgets that he is usually still sleeping when the mail comes bought me this as a surprise for Christmas. But, um, I opened it. (Sorry.) But it’s gorgeous, as is all the other stuff from PoppyFish. I also like the Love Lines — jewelry for people who aren’t really jewelry people, you know? So if you have a man in your life and want to get him something special but not loaded with awkwardness, this is a lifesaver. (No, not for you, Jamie. I got you a fucking computer. Cross your fingers for Valentine’s Day, greedy guts.)

MyNameLabel makes labels. Which sounds boring, until you have people who need labels. Then it’s not so boring anymore. These lovely dudes make labels that don’t suck for people who need their stuff, uh, labelled. As in, people who are too young to know their stuff is their stuff. (Like my son.) Or people too OLD to know their stuff is their stuff. (Like my mother.)

Tangerine Meg makes art cards. Like, the cards you buy for people you like instead of the people you just sorta have to buy cards for. Or for people you don’t want to buy for, but you know you’ll look superior if you get them something awesome. (Not-So-Secret Santa, for example. Or that relative that always buys shitty presents and you want to look smug.) “Saving the world from insipid illustrations and generic greetings, one art card at a time.” What more do you want?

Summer Rose Scrapbooks makes personalized family illustrations. You, your spouse, your cute kid and your ugly dog, doodled for all eternity. They’re pretty freaking cool, actually. Would make a great gift from a kid or to some grandparent type who has everything under the damn sun.

OK, so if you’re a woman you’ll understand what I’m talking about here. You know how you exfoliate in the shower and it’s awesome? And then you’re telling the love of your life how awesome it is and they just don’t get it? And you know they’re not GOING to get it as long as the only exfoliation option is flowery or caramel-y or whatever? And you’d really, really like them to be a little, uh, smoother? Here’s your answer. I don’t totally get it, but if it’s a quarter as cool as I think it is, it’s going to be AWESOME.

Michael from Box of Crayons is THE SHIT, and he came along at just the right time in my life. When I was ready to sell this business to the first person I ran across with a free five grand on their Visa, I got the Eight Irresistible Principles of Fun in my mailbox and pretty seriously changed my mind. Go poke around — there’s no one thing I can recommend above anything else, but the little postcards are pretty freaking cool to start with.

Bauble Bath makes baubles. For your bath. Get it? Bath fizzies and lip balm and bubbly stuff and all manner of girlie delightfulness. Lots of stuff at different price points, too, which I always like.

While we’re talking about girlie stuff, let’s talk about make-up. Purely Cosmetics make make-up without all the crap that comes in regular make-up. If you’re buying it as a gift, just buy a gift certificate, though. She’ll want to pick her own because the options are ENDLESS. Mmm. Make-up.

GlueAndGlitter doesn’t recycle — they upcycle. The stuff they make is better than it was to begin with. I checked this out when they first submitted to the gift guide but the shop is closed for orders till December 6th so I don’t remember too many details. I do remember that they made brown bagging your lunch seem like a good idea with these block-rockingly gorgeous lunch kits for grown ups.

And speaking of upcycling, Funky Body Décor makes jewelry that you’ll actually wear. OK, not everybody will wear it. But I sure as hell would. In her email to Jamie, Nona said this about her stuff:

”I sell hand-crafted art-jewelry that I make from everyday objects and sparkly stuff. It’s cool because every piece I make is absolutely unique, because I recycle/upcycle stuff that would otherwise be landfill, and because I can even do beige for Naomi’s mom ;-) I don’t do precious metals or stones ’cause people leave the “good” stuff at home and I want them to wear mine! And my stuff is so much Fun to wear!”

Not your grandma’s jewelry, people.

While we’re talking about Grandma, How To Cook Like Your Grandmother sounds delicious — literally. “Cooking used to be all about making food that tasted good. But somewhere along the way, we seem to have decided the diet-of-the-week was more important. “How to Cook Like Your Grandmother” is a return to recipes and techniques that are based on what tastes good, not on junk science and fad diets. You won’t find the words lite, low, lean, free or skim anywhere. This is all real food, cooked the way Grandma would have done it.”

Dig art? Know people who are totally impossible to buy for? (In-laws, I’m talkin’ ‘bout YOU.) These guys take your pics and turn them into digital photos on canvas. (Quick note to my mother-in-law: Jane, if you’re reading this, please forget you ever saw this and act surprised on Christmas. Thanks.)

I also love the story for these guys. Dude makes one for his wife, all the neighbors dig it, he decides to make a business out of it. This is the ultimate IttyBiz, people.

In other artsy news, check out this craziness. Part digital, part painting, all adorable. If you are male and not ready to have children, do not let your significant other see the picture with the baby behind the plant. Seriously. This is the stuff that makes normal, intelligent women flush their birth control pills down the toilet. Not that I would do that.

For something a little different, check out these Pop Art Portraits. Take a portrait of whatever — although these guys are pretty pro-pet as well — and turn it into Pop Art. Very cool idea for people who don’t dig landscapes and flowers and stuff. Super cute.

OK. Do you know any writers? Go tell them you found hand-crafted, leather-bound, made in Italy journals. Then take them to the website. This is Spanish Fly for writers.

Laney Pottery makes all sorts of pottery stuff but what I think is super cool is the apple baker. I have a kid who can’t eat anything normal people would see as dessert, so anything that makes me say something other than, “Seriously? Apples? Again?” at dessert time gets a major thumbs up from me. And they’re like, nine bucks. Crazy cool.

The Billable Hour makes fun stuff for business types. My fave? The world’s smallest briefcase. OK, not totally sure if that’s its real name, but it’s a fully functioning briefcase made for business cards or credit cards or cocaine or whatever. Know someone starting a biz in the new year? Killer stocking stuffer.

If there’s an IttyBiz owner in your life, they probably can’t get enough of their little enterprise. I own and really like this book. It’s very cool. I mean, nobody’s as cool as IttyBiz but you can’t wrap IttyBiz and give it as a gift. Plus, the Flying Solo guys, they don’t swear so much, so the fundamental Christians will dig it too.

Lastly, John. My history with John Unger is long and complicated and I’m sure each of us will get our own chapter in the other person’s autobiography. What is relevant to y’all is that he makes fire pits. As a non-homeowner, I do not get fire pits. But I have had enough people see my links to him and write me saying something along the lines of “Holy fucking shit!” that I gather they are popular. Go look. It’ll take ten seconds. (You’ll either love them or you won’t. He also makes mosaics and they’ll be getting their own blog post.)

By Naomi Dunford - Dec 1, 2008 in Home Based Business
Add to del.icio.us  |  Digg This  |  StumbleUpon This

Take a Hummer full of average self-made millionaires. Strand them in the desert. Strip them of their money. Take away everything they own. Rob them of their connections, their networks, their families.

Ten to one they’re millionaires again in less than five years.

Can you be a millionaire in five years?

As it stands right now, probably not. So what is it that’s different about John Q. Millionaire? Why can he take his kids to Euro Disney and you can’t?

Because he depends on himself and the rest of the world depends on, well, the rest of the world.

We used to be self-reliant.

For 40,000 years of human history, we depended on ourselves. We were part of a small network of people who helped each other out, but mainly we fixed our own clothes, cooked our own meals and traded our own chickens to make our way in this world.

We were Jacks of all trades. When our roof broke, we didn’t hope we had money left on our Visa to pay a specialist to come out and fix it — we cut down a tree and went up the ladder. If the wheat crop was poor, we always had the cows. Wife took in some sewing work, husband ploughed the fields. If one thing went wrong, we didn’t cross our fingers and pray the big man down the lane would waltz in to take care of us.

Sometime around the industrial revolution, we gave the responsibility of feeding our families to a bunch of old guys in suits that cost more than our car. Or horse, as the case may have been.

Rich people came in and, as part of an income diversification strategy, decided to build some factories. We started to specialize. We became widget stampers, widget joiners, widget movers. Our self-identity became one of what we did to which widgets for eight or 10 or 12 hours a day.

Western culture became one of efficiency. How could we do it faster? How could we make it easier? How could we work it cheaper?

Then, on April Fools’ Day, 1913, Henry Ford added a conveyor belt to the whole process and generalism went to hell.

Flash forward 95 years and we live in a world of 10-page job descriptions that itemize exactly what we do — and more importantly, what we don’t do. We put cute little comic strips in our cubicles that scream “Not my department”. We do the same thing, every day, for years at a time. Optimally, we do our one thing and one thing only more efficiently than any other person in town.

And in order to ensure we have time for all of this efficiency, we have outsourced the rest of our lives to other specialists. Specialists grow our food and make our clothes and educate our children while we go be specialists for someone else.

We believed we were making things easier. Instead we were handing over every tiny scrap of personal power we had left.

Because in addition to making life soul-suckingly boring, this specialist employee system made us really, really vulnerable.

We are totally dependent on a bunch of strangers to make sure little Madison and Jacob can keep going to Baby Salsa.

We depend on everybody else standing at the conveyor belt to not screw the whole thing up, increasing company costs and decreasing employee salaries.

We depend on the dude above us, the one who kissed so much ass he got off the conveyor belt, to dole out our raises and not favor the guy next to us.

We depend on the marketing department to do a good job selling the stuff that comes off the conveyor belt.

We depend on the guy who owns the conveyor belt to act in a fiscally responsible yet compassionate manner.

We depend on the public at large to keep their own conveyor belt jobs so they can afford to buy the widgets we’re cranking out so efficiently.

And if every single one of those people on whom we depend does their job the way we hope they will, we get a check every couple weeks that pays most of our bills.

That’s good, right? That makes it all worth it, doesn’t it?

How The Rich Stay Rich

The primary breadwinners among us hesitate to tell our spouse that the raise might not come through this year.

We whisper, so the kids don’t hear, that maybe our vacation has to wait.

Maybe the remodeling plan was a little ambitious.

Maybe we can make do with the old Corolla.

The stay-at-home wife tries to stretch the turkey to make a few more brown bag lunches, pastes on a smile and tells the little ones that Daddy’s doing the best he can.

The single mom tries not to cry when she tells her kids that of course she misses them when she’s at work.

She would have loved to be with them when they had chicken pox but she couldn’t afford to take the day off.

Why does this happen? Because we rely on one stream of income and construct our entire lives around the panic that it might disappear.

The rich, on the other hand, have been handily avoiding this trap for years.

Their golfing buddy the financial planner has been ensuring they diversify their investments so economic downturns don’t hurt them. The conveyor belt hysteria doesn’t affect them in the slightest.

Our paycheck can’t even send little Aidan to hockey camp. We’ve got nothing left to invest in anything, let alone a diversified portfolio.

But as the pundits so wisely explain — right after explaining that the ticket to riches is cutting back on your latte consumption — that diversification is the key to wealth, security and freedom.

As in, you’re not supposed to put all your eggs in one basket.

Would you put your family’s life savings in one stock?

Would you put little Emma’s college fund into something you don’t understand, has no guarantees, and over which you have zero control?

No? Then WHY IN HELL are you doing it with your family’s income?

Recently, in a small town in Ontario, the area’s largest employer closed its doors. Most of the town, trained only in the art and science of making canned soup, found themselves out of work.

A few thousand soup makers live in a town where nobody wants to pay them to make soup. Now all of them are going to try to find a way to apply their skill sets to other employers in the area. The competition is fierce, and their mortgages are on the line.

Except there are no other major employers in the area, least of all ones that can make use of Jerry’s 12 years of mushroom chopping experience.

Some of them will find jobs, sure, and good for them. But many others are going to have to reinvent themselves.

Reinvention is difficult enough.

Reinventing yourself, your family’s lifestyle, your social status and your skill set in an economy where everybody else is trying to do the same thing is virtually impossible.

But let’s rewind the clock a few years for our favorite mushroom chopper, Jerry.

Imagine if Jerry had found a few hours a week, when he wasn’t at the conveyor belt, to diversify the sources of his family’s income. Maybe he started a mushroom blog and now makes a few hundred bucks a month in affiliate income promoting the latest kitchen gadgets.

Perhaps his wife picked up the knitting needles and started whipping up a few shawls and baby blanket.

Maybe she found she was good at this knitting gig and started designing a few patterns in her spare time. Jerry’s family picture looks a whole lot different.

Flash forward again to the present, and Jerry’s mushroom chopping job is in jeopardy. His buddies at the conveyor belt are starting to freak out, but Jerry’s little income streams have been growing and they’ve started to add up. Jerry and his family now have options.

They have choices.

They have leverage.

They have freedom.

All because Jerry and his wife decided to turn off the CSI reruns and look into diversifying their income streams.

He didn’t have to make a big, loud proclamation that he was quitting his job at the plant. They didn’t have to spend a fortune on office space or new computers or ergonomic chairs. They didn’t need business cards that said, “We’re serious business owners, dammit.”

They just needed to diversify.

For hundreds of years, diversification has been the luxury of the rich. Now, in the wake of broad globalization and mass internet access, we have a ticket to escape from this madness. It has never been easier to connect with suppliers, clients, customers, searchers, readers, fans. If you’re reading this right now, surprise! You’re on the internet.

If you’re scanning this post, please read this:

IttyBiz has made over $176,000 this year through six different types of income streams. In Part Two of this series, I’m going to explain to you how we did it. In Part Three, I’m going to tell you how I helped a client of mine do it, somebody who went from bumming around grad school to charging $500 an hour consulting. In Part Four, I’m going to answer your specific questions about creating a safe, non-scuzzy portfolio of online income streams.

It’s going to be thorough. It’s going to be fun. It’s going to help you beat this recession. And yes, it’s going to be free.

Whether you’re a single parent, a cubicle dweller, an online business owner, a stay-at-home parent or just some dude looking to finally pay off your Visa, there is still time to take back your power.

Next Christmas could look a whole lot different.

UPDATE: Since Online Business School has now gone live, this list is no longer active. You could still sign up if you wanted to, but you wouldn’t get the lessons. Although if I find something cool, I’ll pass it on anyway.

By Naomi Dunford - Nov 3, 2008 in Home Based Business
Add to del.icio.us  |  Digg This  |  StumbleUpon This

I was on the phone with a client today. He wanted some help with some internet marketing and information product stuff. Pretty typical questions — paid search, landing pages, conversion rates — nothing too exciting. I helped him, all was well. (It was well enough that he decided to send me more money to do more stuff, which is always a good sign.)

Now, right now, since he’s paying me, I’m his consultant. But if he weren’t paying me, a lot of people would say that in this particular facet of life, I’m his mentor. And I guess they’d be right.

Except this particular client attended Stanford Business School.

I have a feeling, just maybe, there’s something he can teach me, too. Now at the moment we’ve only just met and we might end up hating each other, so it’s not exactly the time to start proposing this sort of mutually beneficial relationship. Besides, right now all he needs is to start making some fucking money already. But later? I’d be kind of a dumbass if I didn’t pick his brain, don’t you think?

This leads me to the topic du jour. Continue Reading …

By Naomi Dunford - Aug 27, 2008 in Home Based Business
Add to del.icio.us  |  Digg This  |  StumbleUpon This

Once upon a time, I wrote a post about the monetary benefits of having a financial cushion. And I agree with myself. From a purely money standpoint, you’re an idiot if you don’t have at least something tucked away for when all your clients die of smallpox.

But that’s the money part of it. What about business wise? As in, business growth-wise? From that angle, I don’t know if it’s the best idea. Here’s why. Continue Reading …

By Naomi Dunford - Aug 3, 2008 in Home Based Business - 28 Comments
Add to del.icio.us  |  Digg This  |  StumbleUpon This

Hi everyone,

Naomi is having a little bit of a family drama, and asked me for some help. Therefore, it has fallen upon me to take up some of the slack and get a new post out. Since I know dick all about marketing, I thought I’d try something a little different.

A little while ago, Naomi wrote about Brandon and the Homeless Dude. I have to tell you that something about that title got me thinking. I can’t hear “Brandon and the Homeless Dude” without thinking that they are some kind of crime fighting team like the dynamic duo. They have become one person in my mind. Continue Reading …

By Jamie Dunford - Jul 6, 2008 in Home Based Business - 18 Comments
Add to del.icio.us  |  Digg This  |  StumbleUpon This

This is the second post in a three-part guest post series about making money online and avoiding scams during your search. It’s by Joe and Steve of I’ve Tried That. They still maintain they are separate people. I still maintain they are not. Read part one here — How To Make Money Online and Avoid Scams.

If you’re new to this race—the “making money online” race—consider yourself lucky to have made IttyBiz one of your first pit stops. (Editor’s note: Remember the other day, when we were saying that in order to get a guest post on IttyBiz, you have to use the word “shyster”? Additional rule: Please suck up, but do so intelligently like Joe/Steve.) As you’re about to discover, there are LOTS of bogus money-making programs making false claims in an effort to take your money. One thing that’s in your favor, though, is that they all use the same or very similar tactics. Snake-oil salesmen are never original, it seems, and that’s a fact you can use to your advantage.

Warning Signs That You’re Being Misled

At I’ve Tried That, we sign up for programs and products that make claims and then publish the results. We’ve found that the following are reliable warning signs that the page you’re looking at is at best misleading, and at worst, selling you a bag full of bullshit and claiming it’s gold bullion.

• Stock photos of pretty people, cash, mansions, and cars. This red flag is the online equivalent of a used car salesman calling himself “Honest Vinnie.” What, everyone making money online is a model? Aren’t there any guys with bellies and women who don’t wear makeup? And the cash! I challenge you to find just one genuine business with photos of cash on its web site. There aren’t any. That’s because real businesses don’t have to rely on that cheap tactic. It’s a tacky practice meant to push your emotional buttons.
• High-pressure sales tactics. There are only three positions left! Act now to get the special price! You see the ticking clock?! Give us your money before it runs out or you might not get in! Folks, there is not a limited number of positions available. The price isn’t about to go up. Again, these tactics are meant to push your emotional buttons and get you to make a decision with your heart instead of your head.
• “Anyone can do it!” Have you ever seen this? “No special skills required. If you have a computer, an email address, and an internet connection, you can start making money today.” Honestly, why is it that people looking to supplement their income leave their brains in a jar in the fridge? In what alternate universe can you get a legitimate job or start a real business with no skills? My seven year old can check his email and do the two-finger peck to type, but he’s not going to be pulling in $1,000 per day any time soon. Online as in real life, you need marketable skills to earn money.
• “Proof of income” images. These are images of Clickbank or Adsense accounts showing lots of sales, lots of clicks per day, in a bar graph format. These images can be faked, but honestly, I don’t think most of them are. We’ve seen some that were copied from other sites, but also, the scammer may very well make the kind of money shown in the image. That problem is that he makes it by selling the very scam he’s pitching to you.
• “We’ve researched 4,237 online opportunities, and 99% of them are scams. This one is legitimate.” This announcement, or something like it, is almost always a prelude to selling you an “opportunity” that is misleading and can’t deliver what it claims. These self-appointed watchdog “researchers” tell you a truth (”99% of them are scams”) to earn your trust, and then they give you their affiliate links to the 1% that is “genuine.” You think they’re researched, so you sign up. The watchdogs earn a nice commission. See our posts on watching the “watchdogs,” in which we call two of them out. One of these “research” groups is even promoting processathome.com—the most blatant scam of 2008.

A Little Common Sense Goes a Long Way

Finally, consider this parting bit of advice: If a program really does generate thousands of dollars per day, GUARANTEED OR YOUR MONEY BACK, why would the owner sell it for $49.95? Here’s the math:

$1,000 per day (a conservative claim, by what we’ve seen)
x 365 days in a year
= $365,000 per year!

And some guru will sell you that secret for $29 out of the goodness of his heart? I don’t think so. Here’s a promise from me: when we discover a guaranteed method of generating even $200 per day, we’ll sell it here at IttyBiz first. And how will you know it’s legit? Because we’ll sell to only 5 buyers, and the opening bid will be $50,000, which you’ll earn back before your first year is out!

Our third and final post will tell you about some of the most common scams and about real moneymakers we’ve found.

By Naomi Dunford - Jun 20, 2008 in Home Based Business - 37 Comments
Add to del.icio.us  |  Digg This  |  StumbleUpon This

This is a guest post from Joe and Steve from I’ve Tried That. As far as I’m concerned, Joe and Steve are the same person. This will likely turn out to be false. Also, neither of them are the guy in this picture. Read, comment, go to their website, and I’ll be back when I’ve recovered from writing an ebook.

Even with a seemingly clear-as-ice title to lead you, half of you reading this are misunderstanding me. Well not you, of course, but some other reader less savvy than you. Because you’re an IttyBiz reader, you’re better prepared than most who come to the Internet looking to supplement their income.

You’ve already learned the lesson most people have yet to learn: those who go to Google and search for “make money online” are like country rubes stepping off the train in the big city and asking, “Can anyone tell me where I can give away a lot of money?”

This post is the first in a series designed to limit the blood loss you’re going to suffer if you’re one of the rubes.

It’s a Scammer’s Market

Where do those easy victims go wrong? Their first mistake is the expectation they bring to the table Google altar. When they type in “make money online,” they’re actually looking for jobs they can do from home on their computers. The difference is important: making money online involves running a website or many, affiliate advertising, SEO, contextual advertising, and other tactics you read about here. It’s a pretty sophisticated undertaking. Working from home, on the other hand, is a simple one. You find an employer that needs skills you already possess, and you convince him or her to hire you.

The problem is that newbies think they’re searching for work from home jobs. Knowing this, the scammers write their pages to make affiliate marketing (a sophisticated money making proposition) look like a “rebate processing job” that looks simple.

If you’ve spent any time at all in the work-at-home niche, you know that it’s a fairly slimy corner of the net. It’s full of hucksters, shysters, liars and thieves, many of whom rank high in search engine results. (Editor’s note: All guest posts on IttyBiz now need to use the word “shysters”. Is that not the awesomest word in history?) They rake in thousands of dollars per day by selling the secret of how to rake in thousands of dollars a day by selling the secret of how to rake…you get the picture (for a clever satire of this deceptive hype-based approach, see You’re a Poor Loser.com.). Many are sucked in every day. You won’t be among them after reading our posts.

Pulling Your Emotional Strings

These hapless searchers for online income are ripe and ready to have their emotional strings pulled by flashy websites full of shiny, happy people and wads of cash. They are only too eager to believe the message that making money online is easy and everyone’s getting rich online except you! For only $197, they’re told, you, too, can learn the secrets of making $5,000 dollars a day in your underwear! People under financial stress are not always well equipped to make smart financial decisions. The result is even greater financial stress after throwing money at a scammer.

A struggling single mother of two toddlers, a retiree who’s discovered too late he can’t live on his retirement income, a two-parent household bitten by adjustable rate mortgages and rising gas prices: these are the types of people we see every day at I’ve Tried That (”We lose money so you don’t have to.”). They’ve searched for information about a program they’re ready to spend money on, and they decide to check it out a little first.

Sometimes they spend the money first and then come to us a little too late, but ready to start the disappointing process of bubble bursting that is necessary before they can really begin to make an income using the Internet.

I hope our small series of posts will add to Naomi’s excellent work here at IttyBiz by beginning or continuing that bubble bursting process for you, wherever you are in your pathway. You can never learn too much about the work-at-home niche and how to avoid those who would prey on you.

By Naomi Dunford - Jun 18, 2008 in Home Based Business - 27 Comments
Add to del.icio.us  |  Digg This  |  StumbleUpon This

Somebody I don’t know was recently given the unfortunate and God-given responsibility to publicly inform me that I am a shitty copywriter. (Sadly, this means I will have to quit my life’s work and become a perpetually temporary switchboard operator, but there you are. C’est la vie.)

The reason that this is coming up today is that I have spent a great deal of time over the last couple of days thinking about the blog post I will write to introduce my ebook. When you write a landing page and promote it — and therefore your product — through Pay Per Click advertising, you have the luxury of anonymity. When you write a blog about marketing and advertising and copywriting and you’re trying to sell your shit to the readers of that blog, well, the pressure’s on, isn’t it?

Therefore, I have decided to write this blog post while high. I mean, I’m not high high. Just cold medication and sleeping pills. But I’m high enough that my inner short-copy-versus-long-copy, features-versus-benefits, which-of-the-four-key-personality-traits-is-my-target-customer dialog has been temporarily silenced and I’m just going to wing it. Wish me luck.

The book is about SEO for people who don’t know piss all about SEO. It’s for people who are like, “I have a website and I’d really like some traffic but fuck knows how I’m supposed to do THAT”. You can read more about it on the SEO School page.

A Brief History of IttyBiz

I am a home business marketing consultant. I charge people a relatively low sum of money to help them with their business plans and marketing because I believe that really fucking great businesses go under every single goddamn day because they can’t afford decent help. They’re trying to navigate this new world of online marketing and they don’t know anybody who’s done it before. They don’t know who to turn to because there are so few people who have succeeded in this arena. The bad guys win and the good guys lose, and I find this tragic.

When I was very small, my parents ran some businesses. Some were very successful. Some, not so much. I saw how hard they both worked — separately, of course, as they divorced before my first birthday — trying to make a go of working for themselves so they could have more time with their daughter. I heard my father typing late into the night, sometimes crying and raging and throwing things and crying some more. I saw my mother bringing work home and doing her design work long after the kids had gone to bed. There were no weekends in either of these houses.

One night when I was about four, I got up and asked my dad what was wrong.

My father, so big and strong in my mind, wiped his eyes and looked at me. “Just trying to make it work, Sunshine. Just trying to make it work.”

Because I was very small, I couldn’t do much to help. I tried to make him tea but I was afraid of the kettle and I usually fucked it up. I tried to stay out of his way when I could. I tried to make sure I wasn’t being too much trouble because I knew how hard he had it. I tried so hard to make it easier for him, but I was only one little girl and I could only do so much.

I knew he was sad because he had to go away on long business trips. I remember the days before I started school when we had a night-time nanny so that he could work all night and hang out with me all day. What little sleep he got was during my naps. When the time came for school, I know my father was devastated that he couldn’t homeschool me because he had to work.

Flash Forward 20 Years

When I grew up, I realized that the internet was making it easier for people like my parents to run businesses from their home. I realized that there were literally millions of people out there, desperate to go home and be with their families and make a decent living. They don’t want to be millionaires. They just want enough so that they don’t have to spend another Christmas hoping the babies aren’t disappointed by what they find under the tree. Enough to take the kids to see Mickey at Disney World and stay at the good hotel this time.

Finally, I could help. I couldn’t bring them tea and I couldn’t make their mortgage payment for them and I couldn’t find their kid the last Tickle Me Elmo in the store. But I had a pretty good knowledge of why people buy and I knew that marketing was the single most important factor in a small business’ success.

So I learned marketing. I learned everything I could. I had a baby too young, married the wrong man and promptly divorced him. I couldn’t go to school and be a decent parent at the same time so I learned at night. I read everything there was to read. I wanted to be the best fucking small business marketer on earth so I could make sure all those people who just wanted to be with their families could get what they needed to make their businesses work at an affordable price.

But it’s all a means to an end. When I have enough money, I’ll be doing this pro bono. I don’t have enough money yet, so I’m selling ebooks. I’ve started with SEO School.

It has recently come to my attention in the comments of my first SEO School post that SEO is snake oil. Thank you to that commentator, because you just gave me a new selling point. Those of you who know me know:

IttyBiz is all about the snake oil.

Hopefully I’ve created a resource that will help you. Hopefully you’ve gotten enough information out of this blog to know that somebody has finally written something about SEO that ISN’T snake oil. Hopefully I’ve made it a little clearer for you. Hopefully if you read the book you can do some stuff to get your business in a better spot and still look at yourself in the mirror with respect in the morning.

Since I didn’t want to create the world’s longest sales page, I held off on the who-needs-this-ebook for this post. Let’s face it, more of you are reading this anyway. Therefore:

* If you’re thinking about starting a website someday and have heard that Google favors older sites but you don’t know what to put up there

* If you’ve started a website and you feel like you’re drowning

* If you’re not really drowning but you hear that people are getting all this search engine traffic and you’re just, well, not

* If word of mouth referrals will not keep food on your table and you don’t know what else you’re going to do

* If you know you should be doing something about SEO but you don’t know who to trust

* If you think SEO is for people who “get” websites

* If you were thinking of hiring me but can’t afford it

* If you think you might need an SEO consultant one day but don’t want to pay $500 an hour to learn the basics. You’d rather learn the basics on your own and think about consultants later.

Then you might like my book.

If you think you might like my book, you might want to buy it soon. I’m moving in like, fourteen days and I could use the cash before I move more than I could use it after. Therefore, what’s normally $39 is now $30. It’s good till July 1st.

Use the coupon code “MovingDay”. Get it? Cause I’m moving?

If you want to read more about what’s actually in the book, here’s the SEO School main page. Read the P.S. — it’s about you.

I would really be honored if you’d buy my book. Thank you.

By Naomi Dunford - Jun 16, 2008 in Home Based Business - 36 Comments
Add to del.icio.us  |  Digg This  |  StumbleUpon This

Hey everybody,

So it’s 1:30 Monday morning and Jamie and I are going to bed after successfully launching our ebook SEO School. If you would like to check it out, click here. If you don’t want to read all the sales copy you can just scroll down to the bottom.

Thanks all, more on this later when I am more lucid.

PS- If you do decide to purchase the ebook, when you get to the page that asks if you have a discount code, enter “MovingDay” (no quotes) to get $9 off. I’ll explain later.

By Naomi Dunford - Jun 16, 2008 in Home Based Business - 13 Comments
Add to del.icio.us  |  Digg This  |  StumbleUpon This

If you’re like most home business owners or future home business owners, you’ve done your homework. You’ve probably been hanging around here for a while and you’ve probably read a lot of the posts and comments. Maybe you read Entrepreneur magazine. Maybe you have a Delicious profile full of resources and home business tips. You have researched and planned yourself to death.

Just to overwhelm you, I’d like to add one more piece of advice. This is probably the most valuable advice I could ever offer anyone in your spot.

First, some background. When I started offering the IttyBitty package, one of my first customers was Selene Bowlby from iDesign Studios. She’s does custom website design, and she’s pretty damn good at it. But in addition to being a highly cool web designer, she is also possibly the most prepared home business owner I have ever worked with. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone so set to succeed.

We started talking in January. She was working in a day job that allowed her to work from home. She was running her home business at night. And she had a two year old. Her plan was to quit her day job the following January.

Selene (and I hope she doesn’t mind me writing this, although there’s piss all she can do about it now, isn’t there?) was scared. Prepared, but scared. She knew she had a rock solid service and she had received nothing but good feedback from her customers. She had a medium sized salary she had to be able to replace, and her calculations brought her to the realization that it would take her about a year to transition to full time self-employment.

She hoped she’d be able to do it a month early and quit just in time for Christmas.

When we started working together I was blown away by both her designs and her business savvy. Yes, I was her marketing coach, but I also really identified with her as an individual. We became friends and have supported each other. My support usually consisted of emails that read, “You have fuck all to be afraid of.” (Because I’m supportive like that.)

Three weeks ago, I got an email from Selene that was similar to many emails I’ve received in my home business marketing career. It’s my favorite kind of email to receive but it was especially wonderful from someone who has become my friend.

Tomorrow is Selene’s last day at work.

Seven months ahead of schedule, Selene’s going out on her own.

If you become friends with Selene, you’ll realize she can teach you a lot. She can teach you about dedication and hard work. She can probably teach you about design. (Check out her web design portfolio for that.) She can teach you about staying calm in a crisis and keeping some balance and dealing with toddlers and home business. I would argue that those are important, but not the most important. Here’s the most important lesson you can learn from her.

Do not get sidelined by fear.

Not once did she let fear stand in her way. She charges more than some designers because she’s worth it. She did not let her fear that people wouldn’t pay her stand in her way. She didn’t let her fear that everyone wanted free templates stand in her way. She didn’t let her fear of losing a steady paycheck stand in her way. She was scared shitless and went full steam ahead.

Friends of IttyBiz will know that I’m releasing my first ebook on Monday. Very close friends will know that I’m terrified.

I’m scared that I don’t have a sales funnel. (For non-marketing types, creating a sales funnel is what internet marketers do to get you to pay ever increasing prices for ever expanding products by selling you on something free first and then upselling you later.) I didn’t release a free ebook first. I don’t have an email list other than my subscriber base. I haven’t gone all Stompernet and sent out sexy videos. I have not created fear based sales copy saying that if you don’t buy, the puppy gets it. (I don’t even have a puppy.)

I’m scared that people won’t pay for something they think they could get for free. Recent comments on this blog have indicated that there are people who believe that in the age of the internet, nobody should have to pay for anything, ever. (Does this include food? Rent?) I’m afraid that all two thousand or so people reading this blog have all the time in the world to do the research and read everything there is to know and won’t need what I’m selling.

I’m scared that I’m going to let my family down. I believe that what I’m offering is insanely useful and pretty damn inexpensive. I believe that it will help the people who have emailed me saying “I wish I could afford you but I’m not making any money yet!” I believe it will take months off the home business learning curve. But what if other people don’t agree? Jamie and Jack rely on the income from this website, and I’m terrified I’ll let them down.

Cue big ass red text.

But I will not let that stop me.

I will continue to be terrified, but I will release my ebook anyway and let the chips fall where they may. I will tell myself what I tell my clients — your product is good, your price is good, you have a great group of people who trust you. I will channel balls and go for it. (Then I’ll write some crazy link bait post with my sales figures in the title and get rich.)

Anyway, that’s all. That’s my advice. Don’t be afraid of being afraid. Be afraid, but get on with it.

By Naomi Dunford - Jun 12, 2008 in Home Based Business - 38 Comments
Add to del.icio.us  |  Digg This  |  StumbleUpon This