If there is one thing that will save you time, stress, and blank moments, it’s planning your content in advance. With a simple calendar you can plan and schedule topics in advance – before you’re in a panic about what to write.

But with a few planning tools you can really do a great job of content planning. Here are the tools I recommend.

Calendar in Word Format – I use the landscape layout, one month per page. Yes, I could keep it on my computer, but I tend to plan in restaurants and on the road. So having a paper calendar with me helps the planning process.

Holiday & Events Calendar – Need an idea for what to promote or write about? This calendar has a lot of obscure celebrations and holidays that will tweak your thinking.

Monthly Planning Pack – Alice Seba and her team provide an excellent planning tool. It includes a content plan checklist and instructions for using the monthly planning worksheet. And if you’re a mindmap user, she includes one of those as well, to illustrate the process.

Now that you have the tools, here is the process I recommend:

1. Block off your own holidays first. These are family birthdays, national holidays (if your family takes them off you want to be available, too), vacation time, business trips.  You don’t want to be writing or posting on any of those days, so you now know when you need to “write ahead.”
2. Using the holiday calendar, block those holidays you want to “celebrate” with your readers and subscribers. So you may have a Valentine’s Day customer appreciation sale, a Fourth of July giveaway, a special discount for Mothers’ Day, etc.
3. Plan promotions of your products and the events that you want to promote.
4. Start writing!

You’ll notice that it’s a lot easier to fill your content machine when you know what to write about – and your planning process has just handed that to you on a silver platter.

As we observe Marin Luther King’s birthday, it’s natural to look at why he deserves a national holiday. Three traits come to mind:

Pioneer
Leadership
Vision

On the cusp of the civil rights movement, he stood out because he was a pioneer. Had he emerged at any other time in history, he might not have gotten the same notice. But because he was one of the recognized early leaders he received more attention.

There is no doubt that he was a leader. His personal charisma and his speaking ability made him a natural leader. And his ability to encourage people to rally around him pointed to his natural leadership.

No one can doubt his vision. He spoke of it often and painted a vision that others could see and follow.

But would Martin Luther King have made a good online business owner in today’s world? I doubt it and here’s why.

As a pioneer he had to find new ways of doing things – expressing thoughts, getting a message out, inspiring people. As an early online business owner, you had to figure out new paths.

Nowadays, the path is clear. We are no longer in the pioneer stage of online business. There is no need to invent new paths. It’s a matter of buckling down and doing the work. For a pioneer like MLK, the work would not have as exciting.

His leadership style also does not fit the online business mode that most people use to start their business. Unless he were to aspire to be one of the startups with venture capital and a team, his personal charisma would have been wasted sitting in his home office.

After all for most online business owners, there is a lot of work behind the scenes. Your ability to inspire others is expressed through webinars and video sales letters and in that regard his strong voice and inspirational tone would have been helpful. But for most of us, just being ourselves is more than sufficient.

Finally, any business can benefit from vision. Your vision may be as big as MLK’s. But in your own online business you are the one who not only creates the vision – but you also make it happen. The civil rights movement benefited from his vision, but it took a lot of people who were willing to work unnoticed to make it happen.

So what do YOU think – would Martin Luther King have been a good online business owner? Add your comments below.

Every year starts the same – with lots of optimism and resolutions to change things in your life. And guess what – everyone else is thinking the same thing! That’s why this is a great time of year to profit while you’re making changes.

According to a government survey the top ten most popular New Year’s Resolutions are:

• Drink Less Alcohol
• Eat Healthy Food
• Get a Better Education
• Get a Better Job
• Get Fit
• Lose Weight
• Manage Debt
• Manage Stress
• Quit Smoking
• Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle
• Save Money
• Take a Trip
• Volunteer to Help Others

And if you ask them, most people will tell you they have chosen at least three or four from this list!

So how do you take advantage of these resolutions? Here’s a simple 5-step plan to start your year off with a bang:

1. Research keywords for topics related to the resolutions that most interest you. You’re looking for keyword phrases that are searched several thousand times per month and for which there are domain names to match. Buy a domain.

2. Install a blog on your keyword-rich domain.

3. Publish one blog post per day, using related keywords in the article.

One huge shortcut to getting blog posts is to use PLR (Private Label Rights) article packs. By choosing articles that are well-written you can easily rephrase a portion of the article to make it unique to your blog.

4. Use social media to start a discussion on the resolution you are working on. Naturally you’ll want to share your daily article on the topic, as well as encourage others to comment on the article.

If you’re working personally on the resolution you have chosen, you can easily include your personal experiences, as well as encourage others to do the same. The sense of community will actually encourage people to better stick with their resolution, while it helps you, too!

5. Add monetization to your blog in the form of affiliate links, product reviews, ads, and other methods for generating revenue. Since this is a topic a lot of people are interested in, you will likely have visitors who are looking for solutions to their challenges. Provide those solutions for them and profit when you do.

A New Years Resolution blog is not just a one-time effort. It’s something you can profit from year-round. By adding a list-building mechanism to the blog, you can build a list of people who are eagerly waiting to hear more from you on this topic that interests them.

And of course, you can “re-launch” your Resolution blog next New Year’s Day!

I’ve known guest blogger Dan Janal, an expert in Public Relations (PR), for over 10 years from the National Speakers’ Association and the online marketing world. I think you’ll find his 2012 predictions quite interesting.

I’ve added my perspective on his predictions as the first comment. Why not add your opinion as well!

I’ve been correctly predicting Internet marketing trends since 1994 when I wrote one of the first books on Internet Marketing. I’ve been right before so there’s no reason to think I won’t be right again. You can bet the farm on most of these trends and get even money on the others.

1. Mobile marketing will take off in ways you never imagined.

2. People will be saying, “Visit my app,” in addition to – or instead of – “Visit my website.” The app will be the brochure, website and starting point of interactivity.

3. Small businesses on Main Street will have apps that provide basic info and coupons – even if they don’t have a website.

4. Doctors, dentists and other appointment-based businesses will rely on text messages and other mobile communications to confirm appointments so they don’t lose money on no shows.

5. Your prospects will think all types of written or spoken intellectual property – ezines, books, articles, webinars, teleseminars – ought to be free.

6. You will think that all information ought to be free – except your information, of course.

7. It will be harder and harder to convince people to pay for intellectual property that is available online. They will pay for customized services specifically for them. Start planning your services menu accordingly.

8. Entrepreneurs will finally heed Michael Gerber’s mantra to work on the business, not in the business. But they will take action by HIRING outside professionals who can do the work for them instead of waiting to do the work themselves. Productivity and profits will increase while procrastination will decrease.

9. This phrase will be on everyone’s lips and t-shirts: “If you get something for free, then you aren’t the customer. You are the product.” I didn’t make this up. I wish I did. Think about it. We aren’t Google’s customer, or Facebook’s customer. We are the products they are selling to advertisers. I don’t know about you, but I don’t like being considered an “eyeballs.”

10. Spam will invade social media sites in overt and covert ways, making visits to those sites less enjoyable.

11. There will be more people showing you how to sell speaking services than there will be companies who can hire speakers. Okay, that one was low.
What are your predictions?

Dan Janal helps small businesses get publicity so they can sell more products. My clients get terrific results from my coaching, consulting, done-for-you services and do-it-yourself tools. For info, go to PRLeadsPlus or call me at 952-380-1554.

There aren’t many days left in the year – and most of those are already committed. So here are a few ideas to help speed your year end planning:

What to write about on your blog – I really like these ideas. They’re easy to write about and quick – and don’t require any research on your part. In fact, you’ll probably see some on my site right here!

Update your Twitter profile – there have been some great enhancements to the look and feel of Twitter. And it won’t take much to take advantage of these. Social media is becoming increasingly important to our marketing (yes, I admit it) so it’s in your best interest to look good online.

Create a mobile version of your blog – like social media, mobile marketing is becoming increasingly important. Have you gone to your blog on your smart phone? How’s that working for you? You can easily follow this simple process to create a special mobile version.

Those three things should give you a quick facelift and provide a good start for the New Year. So treat your online business to some year end actions and reap the profits next year.

What else can you think of that you need to do here at the end of the year? Add your comments and ideas below.

Let me confess up front – I didn’t do a lot of research on this. So it’s not truly a historical piece. But I have lived through several phases of Passive Income history, so I feel qualified to speak on the subject.

The Early Days

I’m sure that as far back as history goes, people were dreaming of Passive income. Imagine, sitting in your cave, having foot delivered to you – even having cooked food delivered. Without ever having to venture out in the summer heat or the freezing cold.

So even though no money was exchanged, there was that dream of having everything you needed provided for you – with no effort.

Additional Disclaimer: My passive income experience does not date back to the early days, just in case you were wondering.

Royalty

While historical scholars may disagree, it’s possible that Royalty may have been the next best thing to passive income. After all, you sat there, others served you, you didn’t really have to work – other than to pronounce a few laws here and there. Definitely a passive lifestyle, once you got past the conquering and fighting for your kingdom phase.

Additional Disclaimer: I am not royalty.

America’s Frontier

Fast forward a few hundred years and picture yourself in the early twentieth century. By then everyone recognized what Passive Income meant – it meant having your own oil well, cranking out profits for you, day after day. To current times, it’s still mighty handy to have your oil well royalties pouring into your banking account.

Full Disclosure: I own OnlineOilWells.com

Recent Online Passive Revenue

There have been several periods of Passive Income explosions online. Here are some of the highlights:

Automated Sales Process – With the growing Internet of the mid-1990′s, marketers could now set up a sales page and a download page – and know that their customers could get their product, even if the marketer took a vacation! The revenue just kept coming in – with no outward effort on their part.

This was probably the first use of the phrase “I couldn’t turn it off if I tried.”

Associates and Affiliates programs – In 1996 Amazon was the first to announce a way for “regular people” to get paid to refer customers to them online. That method of revenue has exploded to a multi-billion dollar industry.

Whether you earn passive revenue as an affiliate – or you are the business owner with affiliates sending you business, it’s often a no-effort method for earning revenue.

Autoresponders – With the invention of email-based autoresponders in the late 1990′s marketers now had a way to send automated sales messages. That meant that they could pre-schedule messages to go out, even when they were not in the office. This led to the ongoing stream of “I can’t turn it off, even if I try.”

Full Disclosure: I own AutoresponderBasics.com

Adsense – Google shook the world of Passive income with the announcement of the Adsense program in 2003. Suddenly you could put ads on your website and earn revenue when someone clicked on them – with no effort on your part. It was totally passive revenue.

The checks from Google skyrocketed with the advent of site-building software that rapidly churned out one site after another, each dedicated to earning Adsense revenue, quickly and passively. While the rules for the types of sites required to pull off this seemingly effortless feat continued to change, many people made a fortune from Adsense in these early days.

Then came the First Google Slap. People who were making 5 figures per month, saw their income drop to zero overnight. The rules had changed.

And the rules continue to change. But many of us continue to use Adsense revenue to augment our other income.

Automated Income Streams – Currently the Holy Grail for Passive Income, many programs purport to have the perfect system. All say they involve a little bit of work on your part up front, then “set it and forget it” and the checks start pouring in.

Is it a myth? CAN you create passive income online? I’ll let you be the judge of that.

As for me – while I have enjoyed all of the methods released in the modern era, I believe there is always room for improvement. So I’ll be teaching a new course on automated income starting Tuesday, October 11th.

Join me as we add the latest passive income tactics to your arsenal of online revenue.

Jeanette’s Note: This is a guest blog post from Nicole Dean. She’s one of my favorite sources of PLR (Private Label Rights) content and a true expert in her field. I know you’ll enjoy this article.

Recently, in an interview, I was asked this question:

“Can you explode any misconceptions that stop people from using PLR content?”

Here is my answer.

There are four main myths that I run into regularly.

1. The biggest misconception that people have is that all PLR is crap.

2. The second biggest misconception is that ghostwriters are not good writers. We can even take that a step further and add that people assume they are stupid, taken advantage of, and/or they don’t speak English as their native language.

3. The third misconception is that using PLR takes away from your expert status.

4. The fourth misconception is that PLR and ghostwriting are somehow dishonest.

Let’s run through those one by one.

Myth #1: All PLR is Crap.

If you go back to about 2003, then I’d say that you are absolutely correct. Nearly all PLR at that time was junk. There may have been a few exceptions, but I wouldn’t touch most of that PLR content with a 10-foot pole.

We’ve made great strides in the last few years to raise the standards for what is acceptable and what is not in the PLR world. I’d like to think that I was one of the leaders in that movement.

Myth #2: Ghostwriters are Stupid.

I’ve got to tell you that I’ve worked with some ghostwriters who are brilliant in many ways. Oftentimes, they’re fabulous communicators, smart marketers, and hard working entrepreneurs. And, yes, they’re qualified to write quality information on many topics on the internet.

For instance, for a long time, I had a nurse writing my health PLR articles. I’ve also got a writer who graduated from Stanford University, who writes for several popular print magazines, and is a published author. Yes, she has her own book. And, another who had a career as a Political Speech Writer (before having children). That’s just three of my writers. They’re all amazing people, each with a variety of skills and life experience.

To assume they aren’t capable of writing quality content would be just silly.

I don’t just go to eLance.com and take the lowest bidder. To think that’s how all PLR sites work would certainly be a misconception.

Myth #3: You’re Not a “Real” Expert if you Use PLR.

The other misconception is that using PLR articles takes away your own value as the expert. That you are somehow cheating, plagiarizing, or that you’re a phony if you use PLR.

If ONLY you could see my customer list. It reads like the “Who’s who of Successful Online Business Owners”.

Business is all about cutting costs while increasing the bottom line. What better example is there than PLR content?

If you use PLR articles as drafts, they are delivered to you, ready for you, as the expert, to add your unique thoughts to them.

If you look at PLR like that – you can still keep your personality in your brand – and your sanity at the same time.

Myth #4: Using Ghostwriters or PLR is Cheating.

Most biographies in the bookstores are written by ghostwriters.

Most of the famous orations from our history were written by someone other than the public figure who gave the speech.

It’s not cheating to get help. It’s smart business.

Nicole Dean is the owner of  www.EasyPLR.com – where you’ll find high-quality PLR articles sold in very limited quantities.  The PLR articles at EasyPLR are professionally written and professionally edited — top quality at an affordable price.