But when it rains it pours, and things went wrong, right, left, up and down.  June 1st to June 25th was seemingly one long blurry day of rain.  In the midst of it all, I suddenly found people who were local who had been friends since grade school, disappeared when I needed them most, after requesting my help days before and repeatedly pushing a known problem.   Yet my online friends stepped up, some knowing that my grandmother was only a big  drop in a bucket of a bad month, some simply knowing I was hurting.  And am still (there’s a lot unsaid).

Now perhaps you wonder what this has to do with online tools and how to use them.

Simple.

Years ago, people said you can not make real friends online.  Let me say social media has changed that.

Skype brought Kelly Maria Clark of KellyMariaClark.com and Vernon Harleston of TheHighRoad.com

Facebook and Twitter allowed Allison Smith Haley of Allicat.com, Bonnie Green of BonnieGreen.com, Kate Hollifield of CrazyQuiltAcademy.com and Elaine Ireland of ElaineIrelandPsychic.com  to chat, to email and send just this message *Hugs*.  Now if you are not a social media person the * indicates an action rather than saying something.

Text and cell phones kept me in touch with my boyfriend in New Mexico.

My real world broke apart.  My digital world exploded in love.  If you are not using social media then you do not know how many people who share your same heart (interests and personality and such) exist!

And as my world slowly started regaining some normalcy, I realized the #Blog30 had almost completely slipped by me.   25 days had.  So suddenly my head a bit above ground I started reading.

Create Something Buzzworthy by Melanie Kissell was the first that really struck me.  Somewhere in the middle of the month I started Rockstar Education to Website Basics and WordPress Site Creation and it has produced exactly zero sales.  So I am going to promote more, be louder about how much education you get in 3 months.  And now there is even coaching to go with it!

Then I stumbled across Suzie Cheel’s  Does Fear Stop You Growing? and I must say you feel pretty small when you are always afraid to ask for help and when you do people you trust disappear.  Yet unexpected people appeared and that made life better, and conquering fear is what I will have to do promote myself more.

Finally there was Michelle Shaeffer with Don’t Quit Weekend Inspiration by the time I read her blog…  I was in tears. (Sorry Michelle I just exploded in emotions on your comments)

It would have been easy to quit the blog challenge, to give my internet business, to lose faith, but that means giving up my dream.

I am a writer.

I am an author.

I have instructional guides that help beginners and are explained in detail without talking down, because YOU are worth it.  You are amazing. How do I know?  I was abused.  I have allowed people to tell me I am not worth it or worthy of good things.  And I know the garbage and dirt of life has denied the world of your beautiful light.

Thank you to all of you friends who touched my heart when your hands could not.

~ MJ Schrader

PS.  Get my WordPress coaching program.  It’s worth every cent.

Yes…

it is.

Friendly Outsourcing, Friend-Sourcing.

You may not have heard of friend-sourcing. Chances are good that you have used friend-sourcing and just never realized it. Since so many people do not realize what it is, they do not use it very often for their business growth or for even personal growth.  Utilizing this method of outsourcing projects can benefit both you and your business.

Outsourcing Grows Your Website explains how and why outsourcing is so important.  Friend-sourcing is very similar to outsourcing, other than the actual hiring out of jobs.

Everyday Friend-Sourcing

We ask our friends about movies and ask about restaurants.  Now we can do that on social media such as Facebook and Twitter.  The advantage of instead of asking “have you been” followed by “was it any good” is shortened to “what do you think of…” and people with opinions will post them.

But this can be used for business as well.  You can ask those same questions as related to your projects and work.  You can ask friends to fill out short surveys.

Bartering and Friend-Sourcing

The other way to friend-source is something that was common years ago, bartering.  You outsource a task you are not good at with a friend who is good at that task and vice versa.  This mutual trade of tasks helps optimize your skills and use others skills where you are weak.

Martha Giffen

Someone who is very into Twitter is Martha Giffen.  Now if you want to learn more about Twitter or you do know how to use it Martha can help.  This is a prime tool to help in the Friend-Sourcing field so this is something you should know.  She is offering a class “Tweet with Martha” for free on July 24th.  This course will help you get started on Twitter and offer you another way to Friend-Source.

~MJ Schrader

PS Want to save 25% off my products?

In honor of Pat’s Unseminar 8, you can save 25% off any product this special page.  You have until July 17th!

Things happen. That’s just the way life is. Family emergencies, home emergencies, emergency evacuations. Things happen unplanned and throw things into turmoil.   But how much depends on your planning.

Unfortunately you are reading this post because my grandmother died.  It sounds weird, but she had a stroke May 27th.  So I wrote posts to plan for leaving suddenly, including this one.  This one explains my departure and how the post will be maintained.

Blog Advantage

With blogs and website you do not have to have everything published right away. With WordPress and other blogs you can easily write several posts and leave them in draft mode.  They will not publish, but you can have the posts ready for an emergency. With the posts written and prepared it does not take long to make them work for you.

You can either follow a FIFO, using the first in first out, and keep writing to keep some in reserve/ draft mode for emergencies.  You could write some posts that you know will be timeless, so they can easily be used when the time is right.  The second was the method I chose.

When things change

Then when I got news, I was able to use the quick edit to change the dates to “replace me.”  When you click posts and edit, you can select quick edit underneath a post title to change the date and to scheduled.  Pick dates that follow your normal post schedule to maintain your presence. You can also write posts and schedule them as you write.

What you will see.

For the next few days you will see posts about various services and products people offer, because they can help your business.  Since these are friends, the posts were easy to write especially with worrying about both grandparents.  Also a last minute ticket costs twice as much as regular airfare, especially flying into a tourist town.  Please if you like the person or product I discuss, then please use the links provided and tell them I sent you.  I get affiliate income.

If you want to help me AND make money, join my Rockstar Affiliate Program. You earn 50 to 60% on my products and if you sell over 25 items your rate increases by 5%, 10% if you sell over 50!

~ MJ Schrader

PS.  Please mention this post on Twitter.

The post for today was going to be what should you write about in blog posts.  Well, here is a case of changing your posts to fit a situation.  Thanks to Connie Ragen Green I have made a new friend, Vernon Harleston.  He’s a very positive and motivating person who shares beautiful information.  (See the bottom of this post for more information on Vernon.)

Taking the High Road

However Vernon had a problem.  Like any blogger should, he upgraded his WordPress to the newest version, (this is very important for security and other matters).    The problem is his theme and the upgrade duked it out and HighRoadism lost.  But he had faith in the high road and through friends we connected and I offered solutions to help him.

A blog is a lot of blood, sweat and tears.  You might not realize it until it disappears, but that’s not the only way it can happen.

Almost 2 months ago Kelly Maria Clark and I had enough of the back office problems on 365 Online Tips. As the WordPress Rockstar I had studied all of our options and found the only solution was to kill the site and start over.

Late Night Brilliance (or lack thereof)

The thing is, we didn’t want to kill the site during the day.  Fortunately I was working until 12:40 at a job, so I destroyed the site at 11:30 pm.  Mental note, plan and test ALL (Please repeat with me ALL) of the details before destroying a website that you want to recover.   After deleting the old WordPress website, and reinstalling I realized I could not reinstall the posts as planned.  OUCH…

Thank God for Back Ups

While I fixed 365 with a back up, the plan was export and import, however things went a bit off kilter.  As they they did whilst I was moving things around in the file manager in my cPanel and deleted a blog.  Yes, total and complete melt down there. I thanked God for back ups as my 2 year old blog of weekly posts was restored.   Kelly and I cried happy tears as the back up saved our 45 + posts on 365.

What saved me and what can save you?

A plugin. Yep, a plugin saved me.  As did knowing what to do.  So for the next few days, you can read some emergency blog-saving techniques that can keep you sane in an emergency and in general.   This will help you stay on the high road!

Thank you,

MJ Schrader

Please follow Vernon Harleston @TheHighRoad on Twitter

Please visit his blog at HighRoadism.com where he shares the high road with you.

He has a Success Blog Talk Radio at blogtalkradio.com/thehighroad