This blog is going through some changes, but you can catch me at my main home - HomeOfficeVoice.

Australian business blogging has taken giant leaps during 2008, in my opinion, and I expect it to continue well into 2009 and onwards … and I’ll be there along for the ride - commenting, offering my views, a rant here and there and hopefully giving some insight into running a small business in Australia.

Cheers and all the best in your business,

Martin Neumann
Publisher | Editor | Blogger
HomeOfficeVoice.com
MartinNeumann.com.au

Note: Here’s a link to the article in question - Australia’s best business bloggers…

Once KickstartPress becomes established, more automated and settles into a rhythm I’ll be right back here with all my views and opinions.

Why not check out KickstartPress? It’s an online publishing firm that is going places … but then again, I’m biased. :-)

Cheers,
Martin

And this doesn’t help…

A spokesman for Emerson says the Government will not use the summit to launch any new SME assistance measures and is keen to take the mood of the small business community before acting.

Okay… so, suddenly, the Government needs to understand the moods of small business. Like they don’t know anything about small business: the what, the who, and the how. Read some papers and magazines guys, check out some of the surveys going around. Don’t you monitor these things? Surely you must have an inkling of the mood; and if not, you’re surely out of touch (already!!!).

Amanda Gome is a journalist and publisher I have greatly admired for a long time. She made her name writing about enterprise over at BRW magazine. Since then, she has founded, and is the publisher of, SmartCompany.com.au - an online magazine with the tagline: ‘Australia’s online magazine for entrepreneurs & SMEs’

I don’t think I’ve ever read a more forthright, straight talking, almost rant like opinion piece from Amanda … ever. And today I did: Kevin Rudd and Wayne Swan must act NOW to help small business.

So now Kevin Rudd and Wayne Swan, you need to act again. Small business is in deep trouble in this country. Credit is coming to a screaming halt. No money means no action, and some business owners tell me that activity just went dead several weeks ago.

and continues…

You don’t need a summit. You know that small and medium business is facing a crisis. Sensis, Dun & Bradstreet and National Australia Bank have all published research showing consumer confidence and business conditions is at decade-long lows.

and more…

…set up some emergency assistance services for small businesses. You have taken the knife to small business services in the past year, arguing that market forces should be allowed to operate with the Government’s role to just get out of the way. Well, Craig Emerson, look where your flat earth argument got us.

Okay. So you get the drift. Amanda Gome, respected small business journalist, thinks that the Federal Government must “act NOW”.

I agree. Lets hope that the upcoming get-together on Friday helps the Government understand the mood of small business and we can then cut all this BS publicity stunt and get something done.

Australia has a proud tradition of individuals starting their own businesses, working hard at growing them - it’s the Australian way of life. In fact, small business is the backbone of the economy.

Lets stop treating them (us) like second class citizens.

The summit, to be held in Brisbane, has been organised with the collaboration of the Council of Small Business of Australia (COSBOA) together with Commerce Queensland.

Along with the Federal Small Business Minister, Craig Emerson, attending, both the PM and the Treasurer will be there as well.

The major Banks have also been invited.

This seems to be on the back of calls by the opposition last week that the Government was not doing enough to help, or keep informed, small business in Australia in regards to the current economic turmoil.

In true Rudd speak:

“The purpose of the Government’s engagement with business and the general community is to continue to engage with business and those at the actual coalface of experiencing what has been a significant slowdown and delivery of global credit,”

Obviously, I will be following the Summit as best I can and will post about it here on Monday morning.

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Links…

• The Federal Small Business Minister’s Press Release

But these businesses will always be web-savvy. They typically live on the Internet, they thrive on the interaction with their customers and their businesses probably wouldn’t be around if there was no Internet.

But what about the mainstream?

Those small businesses trying out bits and pieces of the Internet from what they read from mainstream media - they read that they should have an online presence, but not in the same old ways. Huh? They have to market their businesses online but not seen to be doing so. Another Huh! They have to interact with their customers, let them peek inside a little, give them a semi-pass into their businesses. Be. More. Open.

And this is where mainstream businesses coming online find it hard.

Questions come flying at me from many out there, such as:

• What’s social networking?
• Which social network site should I be on?
• What’s a blog?
• Does my business need a blog?
• What’s RSS, Plurk, Facebook, Meebo, LinkedIn, Twitter and on and on.

These, and so many more, questions where put to me over the past three weeks as I attended various small business luncheons, chamber of commerce events etc. Once I introduced myself as someone who “works online” I started getting bombarded with questions galore.

Small business are hungry for information and more than ever before, I see them as wanting to take that next step and really “get online”. To do it properly.

So, as a web content producer, this got me thinking …

Announcing a New 10-Part Series

Welcome to the Web 2.0 (Small Business Edition) is a ten-part series starting next Monday. It won’t be all about the guts of Web 2.0 and I won’t be listing and discussing every Web 2.0 app out there. Nope. This is all about small business and how they can use “Web 2.0″ into their business structure.

Once the ten-part series is finished, I’ll be polishing it up a little, be adding some more content and publishing for all to download.

So watch out next Monday for Welcome to the Web 2.0 - Part 1: Small Business & Web 2.0 - Please Explain?

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Subscribe to my RSS feed today so you don’t miss it.

Okay, so I’ll never call myself an economic expert. Heck, I shouldn’t even call myself an economic pundit. But what the heck…

I know about the basics of economics - just about all that I need to know without getting a headache. I know we’re in what seems to be a massive economic downturn where words such as ‘recession’, ‘depression’ and ‘The Great Depression’ are being thrown about wildly. I know the sharemarket’s are going nuts all around the world - I don’t even want to look at my Superannuation balance.

The Aussie Dollar

I don’t profess to even having a clue as to how the currency markets works (I wonder how many actually do?). What I do know is that a weak Aussie dollar is boom time for myself and any Aussie blogger (any exporters, actually) making their money from the US (which would be pretty much all of us).

The Aussie Dollar killed us last year. Even up to earlier this year, it was almost on a par with the Greenback.

And sheesh, one of the pluses of having to work in such warped time zones online was the advantage of a weaker Aussie dollar - ie: more income in our pockets. Well most of this year this has not been happening and it hurts.

The Aussie Dollar Has Come a Crashing Down

Should I be happy about this? From 90-odd cents down to mid-60’s in a matter of weeks? That’s huge. No economic “expert” predicted this.

I notice that Peter Switzer in The Australian recently writing "The following companies should be cheering the depreciation…" and then he lists a handful of major companies. So little me here, sitting in my cramped home office earning low-4 figure monthly sums … well, I’m cheering … all the way to the Um… Bank. Okay enough! I’m not joining that herd.

Well I have had one of those days and welcome to MartinNeumann.com.au :-)

Check out the tagline and you’ll see my focus.

I’ve long since past the stage of procrastinating about whether to “go local” or “do the world.” Yes. No. Yes. No. It really all came down to two things (well one really); is there a large enough market and is there any money in the market to be made.

I’ve been conflicted with this for the best part of 18 months. Well no more! I’m going local and I’m going to stick with it. It’s been a brewing passion of mine for far too long and I think it’s time.

I’ve done one of those goofy tag clouds with a batch of keywords that visually represents what I’ll be focusing about on this blog (see below).

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The blog that was formerly going to be about eProducts has been scratched. I’ve been running an informal consulting agency for a short while now - theebookagency.com - which has exceeded my expectations. Behind-the-scenes, I’ve been quietly going about my way using LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and various forums to get the word out and for now, it’s roaring ahead. The agency is not accepting any clients for now as we’re currently inundated with enough work to last till early next year (phew, it’s been a hectic few months … managing sudden growth is just as challenging (if not more so) than trying to start up).

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

But back to the current version of this blog, and here’s a visual of what I’ll be yapping on about … from an Australian point of view:

Subscribe via RSS…

Millions of users later, and you knew it had to eventually happen: affiliate marketing on Twitter. So it was good to see highly respected professional blogger, Darren Rowse, have his say with his post: Affiliate Marketing on Twitter - Does it Belong?

And it must have hit a raw nerve because the comments (approaching 100) is where all the discussion is taking place.

So What happened?

Simply put, an Internet marketer set up a system for his affiliates whereby a standard form message - yes, seems you can have one for 140 characters :-) would be sent out at the click of a button. And many did hit that send button.

So if you had received this tweet: “Download Joel Comm’s Adsense Secrets For FREE!” followed by an affiliate link then you have just received an affiliate marketing push that wasn’t written by your twitter “friend” or mentioned in conversation - nope, you got a standard marketing spiel given to affiliates.

To me, that’s lazy marketing by affiliates.

But more importantly is Twitter the place for such activities?

Twitter is a conversation that is happening right now, every minute of every day. Trust is a big thing in Twitter world - in fact, trust is big in all social networking places.

My advice if you’re new to online business: don’t push affiliate products down your Twitter follower’s throats. Your best result if you do so is that they’ll simply stop following you. The worst result is that you’ll get a poor reputation.

My main advice to all online business owners: use Twitter to build up a following, build your credibility, and provide solid (bite-sized) content. Remember: Trust and credibility is hard to attain yet is so easily lost - so don’t fall for the easy money.

I think this is a debate that has just started and still has a long way to go.

When it comes to online business models I really can’t find anything else that beats the one I’m going to tell you about shortly.

You’ve no doubt got a clue about the model just by glancing at this site - but here goes…

Information Products

Create it once, package it nicely, automate the whole ordering process - and then sit back. Rinse and Repeat.

Okay, it’s not really as simple as that … but it’s not far from it!

Passive income is the holy grail of any smart (online) businessperson. And with smart systems in place plus using the flood of automation tools out there in the market today (that’s another post) the time has never been better to get into this business.

So what is ‘passive income’?

Simply put, it’s ongoing income from doing nada … nothing - hence the term "passive". You create something once and watch it sell, sell, sell.

Let me give you an example.

In 2000, I ghostwrote an eBook for a client. It took me about 20 hours to complete and included me doing: research; mind mapping; outlining; writing it; editing it (twice); proofreading it and packaging it up into a nice little eBook. It sold for $47. My fee was $1,500 - but that’s not the point.

In its first year - 2000 - it sold 47 units. In 2001, it sold 112. In 2002, it sold 372 units (it was a big year and the topic was hot). In 2003, it sold 191 units … fast forward to today, and that same eBook sells between 20 and 80 units a year.

Now you do the numbers. $1,500 doesn’t seem much compared to the return on investment.

And that my friends, is passive income - to create something once and put it out there on autopilot and watch as year-in, year-out the sales come rolling in.

Now tell me. Is that the most ultimate, the greatest, the juiciest Business Model … Ever!

I think so.

But hey, thems the breaks. And would you believe that my two motto words are: Simplicity and Minimalist - no, I kid you not.

But the tide will turn … (drumroll)

This week should see some normalcy coming back to this site - heck, you may even get a few decent posts, a posting routine, some pillar articles, the freebie bribe to sign up to my newsletter and all that other good blogging jazz that makes a blog good, conversational, community-minded and a massive hit (that’s the plan).

See you soon,
Martin