Small business no longer darling of the USA

You will not get health insurance, you will not be able to claim unemployment insurance, you will not get any income after the project ends and you may just be out of the project for 12 months following that. Do NOT let them hire you corp to corp. You are being tricked as part of an elaborate scheme to not pay you any benefits whatsoever.

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A long, long, time ago in a galaxy far, far away, small business in America was the backbone of our civilization. Not so much today. According to the United States census bureau, there are approximately 307 million Americans. With an unemployment rate hovering around 10%, this puts about 30 million people out of work. Small business enterprise makes up the bulk of all American economy. Many small business owners provide services to major corporations as 1099 workers or corp to corp workers.

Spinks Small business tips for economic survival

Spinks Small business tips for economic survival

As workers and small businesses head to the unemployment lines to find help after ending a project, many are dismayed and find out that they are rejected from pursuing and receiving unemployment benefits. Why? States paying unemployment insurance benefits are being weighed down and are spending billions in payouts. If they can stop you from receiving benefits they will. Here’s how they do it from a small business perspective.

Years ago, your small business was banging. It was doing great. You provided services corp to corp to major United States corporations and charged them $100 per hour. Banks loved you. People loved you. Life was good. You serviced a niche and you could get financing on everything. Not anymore. Corporations are getting over on you by setting you up as a corp to corp employee. In this way, the temp agency that they go through does not have to pay you a dime in insurance benefits and the most important thing is that they don’t have to pay you unemployment benefits when the contract ends.

Let me say it again. If you provide services as a contractor to a major corporation, the new American hustle is to set you up as a corp to corp contractor. When you head into the unemployment office wanting to claim benefits, you are denied because you were not a W2 contractor. Also, if you did not work the previous two quarters for that firm, you will be denied as well. So companies are getting over on you by hiring for 4-5 month contracts and then letting you go. It seems great and you are happy as a lark because you got the contract but there’s a hidden death trap in there for you and your personal economy.

You will not get health insurance, you will not be able to claim unemployment insurance, you will not get any income after the project ends and you may just be out of the project for 12 months following that. Do NOT let them hire you corp to corp. You are being tricked as part of an elaborate scheme to not pay you any benefits whatsoever. You will leave the unemployment line looking silly and feeling a true sense of let down. Watch how you work.

Gerard Spinks is the CEO of Spinks Industries, a black enterprise, and web content development and marketing company based in Atlanta, GA.

The Donald Trump University Experience

I had a big dream that was for sure. My dream is still the same: I want to buy one apartment building this year with a minimum of 44 units with each unit making profits of a minimum of $250 per unit.

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As a part of my quest to build wealth as a black business in Atlanta, I decided to plunge head first and experience wealth creation from a world leader in this field. I reached out to Trump University and decided to sign up, register, and go to the next level. I wanted to link and learn from America’s finest leader and was frustrated with some of my real estate investments in Atlanta that weren’t cash flowing positively and making me money the way I wanted.

I had a big dream that was for sure. My dream is still the same: I want to buy one apartment building this year with a minimum of 44 units with each unit making profits of a minimum of $250 per unit. If purchased right, I should make at least $11,000 per month in profit and then go do another building. My main goal is to create $100,000 per month in profits from apartment buildings and real estate.

Trump University

Trump University

I would tell people this in Atlanta and their eyes would just glaze over and look at me like I was crazy and silly. I knew that I couldn’t keep these same people around me and tell them this type of goal. I needed people around me who thought and had way more than me and who wouldn’t be afraid of me saying something like this. I needed to build a team of people who would hear that, not flinch, and know what to do to help me achieve this dream realistically and create a strategic plan to do so. I had always known of Donald Trump and even read most of his books. I wanted more. I wanted to get help.

The first thing I did was register at Trump University. Within 2 hours of registering, I received a call from a representative who wanted me to go through an assessment test to determine if I was someone that Mr. Trump would work with. I was excited at the fact that they actually cared. They didn’t think about me being a black american and didn’t think anything else. They simply wanted to find out if I had the right mentality to do the work necessary to succeed.

After taking the assessment test, they assigned me a personal wealth coach designed to help me along the way. He asked me about my goals. He wanted me to tell him exactly what I mentioned above with my cash flow goals and wanted me to explain how I planned to get there. He wanted to know if I had cash flow forecasts and plans in writing which I did have.

I decided to continue to take courses through Trump University and become a master student and accept this personal coaching that they had offered me. Trump University wanted to know how serious I was to commit to the program and learn to make money. What? I was so humbled to be around him and happy to be a student. I just wanted to see myself as an African American succeed with his program so that I could teach others.

Gerard Spinks is the CEO of Spinks Industries, a web content developer and marketing company based in Atlanta, GA.

The little known Black American Success Secret

This was awesome to see and a sight truly to bear witness to. It was a group of executive black business men and women. Hire powered business people who ran businesses in both Northern California, Southern California, and nationwide. I met executives from Black Enterprise Magazine, American Express, and other top level CEO’s.

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Most black Americans and African-Americans have never heard of The Jack and Jill organization that has been around for 100 years. I went to a Jack and Jill event in the highly exclusive Blackhawk country club in the San Francisco Bay area several years ago and was blown away. I was invited by a friend of mine who owned a carpet cleaning business in Concord, CA and was the head of The Black Families organization that I was a member of. He said “G, you’ve got to come to this event. You belong at it.” I said sure. I had been looking at houses in Blackhawk and dreamed of possibly living in the exclusive gated community in Danville, CA one day next to E-40, Gary Payton, and several other prominent Bay Area African-Americans.

BlackHawk Country Club Bay Area, CA

BlackHawk Country Club Bay Area, CA

We went to the black tie affair excited and ready to meet some really good and interesting folks and have a great time. I walk into the Country Club and everyone was hopping out of Limousines, high end Mercedes Benz’s, BMW’s, Bentley’s, Rolls Royce’s, etc. I knew I would fit right in! As I’m walking in, I see some friends of mine in the doorway who were the talent for the night. For this party, they had my friend Dwayne Wiggins of Toni, Tone, Tony and some ballet dancer friends of my ex-wife. We stopped, had a drink with them and kept it moving to enjoy the party.

This was awesome to see and a sight truly to bear witness to. It was a group of executive black business men and women. Hire powered business people who ran businesses in both Northern California, Southern California, and nationwide. I met executives from Black Enterprise Magazine, American Express, and other top level CEO’s.

A couple of gentlemen asked me what I was drinking while I was in this little lounge area of the country club. I said “Henny with a splash of coke”. These dudes were the truth. We sat and talked about the Jack and Jill Organization and how they belonged to a “secret society” of African Americans who are highly successful and who believe in building that success in their kids.

They believe in ensuring their children have a high level of education and mingling with other children who also belong to the Jack and Jill Foundation. They believed that I was the caliber of individual who belonged in their inner circle.

Talk about a compliment. I’ve never had a more potent compliment in my life to this day. The Jack and Jill Foundation is a great organization and has roots in Strivers Row in the Washington DC area. Everything about Jack and Jill is good. They are committed to the improvement of black america life and they are committed to building success within the young black youth. I will definitely have my daughter be in this highly esteemed African American organization.

Google Adword Keywords to make your website profitable

If you see words that are estimated to cost over $1.00 and that have a ton of estimated traffic, this is NOT good for you.

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Google has tools to help you on your quest for total world domination with your blog. Making your website monetized and making money has several steps attached to it. Providing updated and new content, keyword research, and website analytics.

I do this process everyday: write new content, publish new content based upon google adwords keywords for my target niche, and analyze my website traffic numbers. It is very important that you take a numbers and analytical approach to this hustle. You need to know what people are clicking on and what they could care less about on your website in order to know how to make money.

Google Adwords Keyword hustlin

Google Adwords Keyword hustlin

Minority owned business especially needs to understand these tactics that the big boys have already mastered. Go to Google and setup an Adwords account. While you’re up there, set up a free Adsense account as well which will allow you to put up pay per click banners on your website. When people click on the Adsense ads, you and Google share revenue. For the Google Adwords keywords exercise, write down at least 20-35 keywords that describe your website and look at it from an angle of what a user would search on if they were using Google to find something. Think outside of the box. Don’t just think of your name. Egotistically, I think everyone wants to know Gerard Spinks. Not true. People in Wisconsin, Iowa, Detroit, China, and Japan don’t care or know who I am and will never search on my name.

Someone wishing to enroll in Clark Atlanta University though will search on terms such as HBCU, black colleges, or Clark Atlanta University. Someone interested in finding a Body Shoppe store in Atlanta will search on “body shoppe atlanta, ga”. You get my drift. Once you have selected keywords, plug them into the keyword tool in your Google Adwords Keyword account. Click on estimate search traffic and it will give you an idea of how many clicks it estimates and the estimated cost per click of those keywords. Steer away from massive keywords like “real estate”, “make money online”, “cash flow”, “harry potter”. You will never ever get those keywords unless you have huge budgets to reach the market.

Google Adwords Keyword Free tool

Google Adwords Keyword Free tool

Once you establish the keywords to use that don’t estimate being over $1.00, these should be included in your marketing strategy. If you see words that are estimated to cost over $1.00 and that have a ton of estimated traffic, this is NOT good for you. It does not mean that you will get all that traffic unless you’re willing to pay daily to get that traffic. Aim for smaller niche keywords that people would search on and use these. When you get this going, it is time to start creating one of two things: ad campaigns or creating content that incorporates your Google Adwords Keywords into your daily hustle.

Is your bank account a measure of your success?

It immediately made me think of why my mother focused us so heavily on faith and belief. The guy I was talking to lives in Oakland, is a young dude, and said that money rules his world. Interesting attitude but we’ll run with his attitude for a minute. Because money is his God, he is setting himself up for failure. Just because he doesn’t have a job, does not make him less of an authority on his chosen field.

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In a very interesting conversation with a colleague, he made a statement saying that because he was unemployed and his bank account was low, he felt that he didn’t have the same expertise or voice of authority that he used to have in business 2 months ago.

I was shocked at this and couldn’t really understand the thought process. This made me think are we our bank accounts? Have we gotten so caught up in finances that our self-worth is directly tied to our Chase bank account?

The Ballers Guide to MAJOR Figure$

The Ballers Guide to MAJOR Figure$

It immediately made me think of why my mother focused us so heavily on faith and belief. The guy I was talking to lives in Oakland, is a young dude, and said that money rules his world. Interesting attitude but we’ll run with his attitude for a minute. Because money is his God, he is setting himself up for failure. Just because he doesn’t have a job, does not make him less of an authority on his chosen field. I listen to him and had he not told me about his bank account, I would never have known. His advice was still very valid for an investment banker and I appreciated everything he said.

He hooked his whole self-esteem and confidence to his job and that’s simply not true. Because he is momentarily out of work, does not make him a bad person, or someone who doesn’t want to pay his bills, or less of an authority. His advice was/is welcomed and he knows a great deal about strategic investments, portfolio management, and institutional investing. Ok, his industry is mired in some mess right now but so is mine. It doesn’t make me less of a business mind or millionaire mindset because my industry is upside down. The industry is not what makes you. You make the industry.

Be sure not to make this mistake of attaching your emotion and your self-worth to Bank of America and the ATM receipt. Yes, it sucks to go to the ATM and see that damn little piece of paper say $48 remaining in your account and you’ve got to float until the end of the month. Yes, it’s crazy. Yes it’s difficult. No, it doesn’t make you better or worse. If it said $48,000 it would make you and I both feel better but it doesn’t make you a better you. It’s a blessing but it doesn’t improve your self-worth. It improves confidence indeed but it cannot improve self-worth. If you see yourself as a millionaire, claim it, be it, go after it. Don’t stop. Don’t listen when people say that’s not you. It is you. It’s what you think about. You need a millionaire mindset in order to make it today. Don’t forget it and leave it in the dust. To succeed as a black business, you need this times 2.

How to make your blog successful

Here’s the winning secret that I’ve learned on blogging vs having your own website. Wordpress or Blogger rank WAY higher on a website called Alexa than having your own website. This means that putting content up on Wordpress or Blogger get indexed faster and quicker and have greater visibility on the Internet than your own website.

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I know I’m supposed to be like other blogosphere guru’s and tell you what you want to hear.

“I turned on my blog and started making hand over fist cash because I’m the greatest thing since sliced bread and the whole world loves me!” Yeah right. And, I come from a family with a worldwide sports name and people still need to know who you are and what value you provide to them.

How to be successful with your blog

How to be successful with your blog

Who gives a crap who Gerard Spinks is? What can I provide to you of value?

Here’s the winning secret that I’ve learned on blogging vs having your own website. WordPress or Blogger rank WAY higher on a website called Alexa than having your own website. This means that putting content up on WordPress or Blogger get indexed faster and quicker and have greater visibility on the Internet than your own website. I know it sounds crazy but it’s true. I’ve put this in practice myself and my Spinks Industries website has been in operation for 4 or 5 years. When I post on WordPress, it gets seen a little better than posting on my own site. I suggest using both your website and WordPress and integrate both of them together via RSS feeds.

If you have a budget of say $20 per day, you would really help yourself by placing Google adwords ads about your business to also funnel web users into your website via Google Adword keywords. I notice that using a combination of both of these techniques proves to send a decent amount of traffic to my web properties. And, if you can be controversial, which I am, you are then only limited by your daily pay per click budget. When I run ads that are controversial in nature, I can get 100 clicks to my website in 15-30 minutes. Obviously, you can run through your daily budget real fast based upon how much it costs to pay for keywords and get top Google sponsored link positions 1-3.

I focus on keywords that are not super popular and that cost me anywhere from $.30 – $.55 per click per keyword. This means that for 100 clicks, I pay anywhere from $30-$55 per day and keeps my budget under control. For pay per click, if you write the proper ad campaign copy text, you can easily get the right traffic clicking on your ads and send 200 people per day to your website and put them on a landing page that offers them your product or service. I recommend using search engine techniques via keywords and Google Adwords keywords to be successful with your blog.

All Social Media is Not Equal

You MUST get into strategically targeted niche groups where you can become a thought leader. If you do NOT become a thought leader on LinkedIn you will not connect with money players and income.

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I’ve been on social media for a little bit now. I jumped on Facebook on New Years Day in Atlanta after not seeing one of my best friends Alex Kilgo’s baby boy since he had been born. Alex told me that all of our friends were on this thing called Facebook so I jumped on it. It was addicting and I think I spent all day on it watching New Years Day college football games and facebookin’ it.

LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook for business use

LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook for business use

Re-connected with everyone from childhood, high school, college, and beyond. It was awesome. But me and my friend La Shawn would always discuss does it do anything for business? I have over 400 friends and have not really made one business connect from Facebook.

Then came Twitter. I hopped on Twitter after seeing Shaq and McHammer on it via my Facebook page. I had no idea what they were talking about but I jumped on this thing to see what it was all about. At first, I didn’t understand Twitter at all. I kept hearing about social media and all the advantages of it but could not put the pieces together on this Twitter thing. I stayed on Twitter for awhile and launched my radio show Beyond the Bling and even booked guests directly from Twitter. But this was social. It did not bring income to me and as an entrepreneur, I’m all about income, period. If it doesn’t make money, show how to be successful, or the potential for money, I’m not on it like that.

Then, there’s my LinkedIn. For awhile, I just had my resume up on LinkedIn but nothing was happening up there either. My resume was sitting there on a shelf. I figured because I had such an impressive list of companies, that business and job opportunities would come beating down my door. They didn’t until I started using my niche groups effectively and starting discussions. This is the power of LinkedIn to drive business to you.

In my world, LinkedIn is the hands down winner of the social media game if you want to combine social media with actual income. Twitter and Facebook are simply to talk. It’s like going to the family and friend barbecue and sitting around drinking some Heinekens, a Red Bull, or some punch and talking smack to your friends. LinkedIn is the actual social media where you go to the W Hotel and have a networking session. It’s where the business is actually done at and not all this talking for the sake of talking. Talking for the sake of talking is good only at the barbecue.

Specifically, LinkedIn has set me up to bring in over $20,000 per month in income. This is no exaggeration and not pure speculation. But there’s a trick. Don’t believe all these gurus who just talk about it and pretend that they put up a LinkedIn profile and magically dollars started pouring in. You MUST get into strategically targeted niche groups where you can become a thought leader. If you do NOT become a thought leader on LinkedIn you will not connect with money players and income.

What is Web Content and why is it important?

For those who work at home, originating content should be your number one goal. If you have the time, opportunity, or ability to be at home, you can take that time to write content about your business, your products that you represent, or your service offering.

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We always hear content is king. But what is content and how do you create it? Minority owned businesses, black owned business, and work at home businesses need to understand this important concept to building web traffic. There are two ways to build content: either be an originator of content or pull content via RSS feeds from other sites or publishers that are originators of content and put it on your site.

Developing fresh web content to build your business

Developing fresh web content to build your business

For those who work at home, originating content should be your number one goal. If you have the time, opportunity, or ability to be at home, you can take that time to write content about your business, your products that you represent, or your service offering. To get indexed in Google and to improve your web traffic you need tons of content. Let me quantify “tons of content”. I need you to write at least 50 posts about your web offering. I learned this from a business associate and buddy Shoemoney and he’s right. You need to post at least 50 quality original content articles/videos/etc. about what you do.

Why 50? Why not post once and be done with it and let the search engines find you and you start making $10,000 per month overnight? Do you ever return to a website and it says the exact same thing that it said 3 days ago, 3 weeks ago, 3 years ago? This is not original content and it will not compel you to return. Building a business or work at home opportunity is about repeat customers. Even if they are not customers yet, you need to offer something to have them return to your website.

If you don’t know what or how to write, you must hire someone to write for you. It’s like in college. If you don’t know how to write term papers of quality, you better find another student with a quickness who knows how to write and can write it in your tone not theirs. This is what needs to be done to increase your web traffic and build your reputation. You can hire Spinks Industries to do this writing for you.

I don’t care what you do, this is an important step for you in building your work at home, small minority business, and/or small business enterprise. You must not let an obstacle get in your way of this important step. If you want to work at home, you must build repeat customers and build a reputation on a foundation of trust. The more original content that you provide, the more trust that you build. Twitter will not allow you to do this. You must harness the Internet to make money and start that foundation now.

What you think about me is my business

I’m sitting in California right now on a beautiful sunny evening sipping on a bottle of Moscato wine from the Napa Valley enjoying a breeze off the San Francisco Bay.

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On Twitter, I once saw the young, black and fabulous Ms. Bevy Smith say “what you think about me is NOT my business”. While this is true from a personal standpoint, it is not true from an Internet and small black business standpoint.

What you think about me is my business

What you think about me is my business

I wrote an article on my Atlanta Examiner news site that discussed H1B Visa‘s, it had over 70 comments and blazed out of control. One comment was very interesting and the commenter said “The writer of this article is a rich contractor who lost a contract and greedy for more money…and we are here fighting over his stupid topic”.

Very interesting comment and a huge assumption on this persons part but it taught me a great lesson. What you think about me is my business and my brand. It is my personal brand that makes him feel this way although he doesn’t know me personally at all. I also don’t know him but I now think about him in a certain light because of his comment.

I also made a comment on a fellow writers post at The Harvard Business Review. Just because I made the comment to someone else’s post, someone reached out to me because they considered me a business leader and scholar. I only made a comment on another prolific writers post. She was smart and had a great topic, not me. You get my drift though, right? Learning how to be successful is about perception on the internet. It can make or break your brand.

What I write about as a thought leader in my specific niche on my LinkedIn gets me tons of respect and business leads just because I start discussions. What the people think about me and the perceptions that they have of me in my niche area is of paramount importance to me. It will not destroy if they think poorly but if they do, it means I need to be careful of my brand and what I say and how I say it.

All black business and famous black folks need to be conscious of perception. In this Internet age, perception is reality. I’m sitting in California right now on a beautiful sunny evening sipping on a bottle of Moscato wine from the Napa Valley enjoying a breeze off the San Francisco Bay. What perception does this make you have of me? It plants something in your mind. I could really be sitting in the projects somewhere fighting pitbulls and you would never know it. Perception is reality. Protect and service your brand now. Your brand is what’s going to lead us out of the unemployment lines and into our own successful small black businesses.

Gerard Spinks is the CEO of Spinks Industries; a Internet marketing and content developer based in Atlanta, GA.

Blogging for Profit or Loss

The first key in being successful in blogging isn’t just throwing up a blog and talking about Kanye West, Lady Gaga, and Hip Hop and watch the checks roll in so that you can stop being on unemployment.

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I saw someone on Twitter ask a prominent Atlanta music gossip blogger how to blog and why she was successful. She responded that bloggers got paid just like other media outlets such as television, newspapers, etc. from advertisers. Let’s dig deeper as this is way too shallow of a response.

The first key in being successful in blogging isn’t just throwing up a blog and talking about Kanye West, Lady Gaga, and Hip Hop and watch the checks roll in so that you can stop being on unemployment.

Kanye West's girlfriend number 1 Amber Rose

Kanye West's girlfriend number 1 Amber Rose

The thing that Necole Bitchie is not telling you is that she has traffic coming her way and she has developed herself as an industry insider. But more than being an industry insider, she has traffic because she built up a brand and a reputation for provided inside game to consumers. This traffic is what advertisers care about more than any inside game or inside hustle. I’m not sure of her numbers and I’d have to run Google analytics on her site to see if she’s producing numbers but bloggers must create traffic for niche keywords on the Internet.

The key to building traffic and viewers to your blogosphere lies in building your reputation about your chosen niche and writing about it like a beast. If you are serious about it, you would have way more than one posting a day. If you want to build a reputation, build traffic, and do it full time without begging for advertisers, your main mission will be to blog and post up new content 3-5 times per day. You will also need to focus exclusively on keywords that are not in hot competition on the Internet so that traffic sees you and comes to your blog.

For example, if you want to blog about music and you do keyword research on the keyword Kanye West, chances are you will never be seen by anyone using Google or Bing to search on Kanye because all the major writers are writing about that. You don’t stand a chance and your blog will not get viewers. You must focus your efforts on niche keywords and do a lot of footwork and analysis on keywords that are not so popular but that you can dominate in a google search. If you want to blog for profit, learn how to become successful at it, and ultimately do it for a living, you must learn how to drive traffic to your site without paying for that traffic.

You must look at your blog as an emerging black enterprise and successful small business enterprise. You must take a broader look at it instead of a completely small time personal view of your blog. In today’s economic recession and world, you would behooves yourself to dust your blog off and start writing like a beast such that in 2-3 years, you are a leader making $10,000 per month from your blog and attracting visitors and advertisers.

Written by Gerard Spinks, CEO of Spinks Industries AKA The Underground Millionaire

All posts are original content by Gerard Spinks Publishing, LLC, Atlanta, GA USA 678-993-7743