Dream big and live large

Archive for June, 2008

Tips For Making Money From The Internet

Amanda Lord and Geoff Hughes - Fund It Frog

Toby Beresford - Nudge London

The internet and social networking sites like Facebook present lots of opportunities; but how can you make money from them? I wanted to know, so I interviewed Amanda, Geoff and Toby. Amanda and Geoff’s business, Fund It Frog, is a Facebook application. The way it works is that you buy items via Facebook and Fund It Frog will give some of the money from your purchase to a charity of your choice, at no extra cost to you. Fund It Frog is making money and so are hundreds of charities nominated by Facebook users.

So is this a good way of making money from the net? I asked social media expert Toby, who commented on Geoff and Amanda’s business and gave some hot tips as to capitalising on the opportunities out there. Whether you’re a blogger, a Facebooker or MySpacer, there are thousands of ways to cash in on this phenomenon and anyone can do it, even me: as a result of Toby’s advice, I’m thinking up all sorts of ideas to make money from this blog.

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Make It In The Music Business

Kwame Kwaten, D’Influence Productions and Teebone, Music Producer

Are you a singer or a music producer? In fact, if you’re anyone interested in finding out what it takes to make it in the music business, listen to this interview. I spoke to the two music producers named above. Between them they’ve worked with the likes of Jay Z, Micheal Jackson and Craig David. In this interview they gave advice about how to promote yourself, how to get your demo heard and what sort of attitude you need to be successful in the music business.

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The 50+ entrepreneur

Annabel Rhodes - Co-founder Rhodes to Heaven and Laurie South, Chief Executive, Prime

Have you ever wondered if you could start a business at the time of retirement? It’s happening all over the UK and it seems to be the new trend. Annabel and Penny Rhodes started a cosmetics company when they were approaching retirement and Annabel talks to me about why they did it. She also talks about how older people are different in their approach to business.

Laurie South of Prime (which in his words is like a Prince’s Trust for older people) tells me about this growing trend, why it’s happening and what assistance is out there for the 50 plus person starting up.

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Male and Female Types

Alison Davey and Elizabeth Clark - Gender experts Pauline Crawford and Alana Mitchell of Is That All There Is?

In this show I explored the idea of gender types. Speaking to two female entrepreneurs in the first half and then going into a discussion in the second half of the show, we looked at whether or not the business world is just simply a man’s world.

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Ethnic Minorities in Business

Jessica Huie - Colorblind Cards and Kamel Hothi - Asian Markets Director, Lloyds TSB

In this show I explored whether or not ethnic minorities approach business differently. What makes some ethnic groups so hugely successful and why do some have lower instances of success? Entrepreneur of the week Jessica Huie talked about how she launched a greeting card business with the aim of featuring more ethnic minority models and then I chaired a round table discussion with Kamel and Lola about what they thought.

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Making a kick ass brand and some ale

Nick Dolan of The Real Ale Co and Simon Middleton, branding expert, Turton Middleton

The entrepreneur of the week in this show was Nick Dolan who founded The Real Ale Company. Starting out based on a friend’s farm, he’s now got his business up and running from his base in Twickenham. So if you’ve ever wondered what the difference between ale, beer and cider is and have ever wanted to start this sort of business listen below to how Nick did it.

And then we talked about branding. I asked expert Simon Middleton about what it takes to create a kick ass brand……

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Mums in Business

Jane Hopkins of Mum’s Club and Sue Atkins

Sue Atkins runs a company called Positive Parents. What her company does is to train people how to bring up happy and positive children. As a mother herself, Sue is passionate about this area and is a passionate businesswoman. I also talked to the lady behind a network that she has created specially for Mums In Business called Mum’s Club. I asked her about what they do and what sort of support is out there.

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Mistakes businesses make and how to avoid them

Terry Irwin - Management Consultant, TCii and Life-coach Alix Nadelman. Paul Torrisi from The Apprentice also dropped in.

Ex-Apprentice contestant, Paul Torrisi dropped into the show to give his views on why he thinks some businesses fail. Management Consultant, Terry Irwin also gave his advice and then in the second half of the show, I got some advice from Alix about how to build an effective team.

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