Everything’s included! Speaking of investment, I don’t know of any other business on the planet where you can begin with a monthly overhead of only THIRTY BUCKS.Susan Gast from easy-food-dehydrating.com
Tell us about your website, www.easy-food-dehydrating.com. When and why did you start your site?
The housing bubble had burst and people were getting laid off from their jobs. To be honest, that didn’t really affect me because I’ve always had that entrepreneurial streak … since the young age of 15 when I worked on dad’s farms for pocket money and learned that hard work pays off. My dad is a great teacher and a hard worker, himself being self-employed since leaving the (British) Army. His work ethic rubbed off on me.
In 2008, I was working from home doing mechanical engineering design (with my brother) and then the recession began. Work dried up. What to do? I tried selling stuff on Amazon à la “FBA” (Fulfillment By Amazon) but the only ones being fulfilled were Amazon themselves …
Fast-forward to 2010 … I was watching Glenn Beck when he was on Fox News and he stated that his family had stored dehydrated food down in his basement – for emergency food purposes. The light bulb went off in my head. You see, we’d been through back-to-back hurricanes in 2004 and we were without power for a couple of weeks. Fresh food ran out and frozen food languished in the freezer … what a waste.
I researched the food dehydrating topic and realized I wouldn’t be the first to start a website on food dehydrating. I must admit I was a little scared of starting my own website … but excited too.
And then it hit me. How On Earth Was I Going To Start A Website?
I didn’t know a thing about websites, aside from how to surf! And on other websites I noticed “become an affiliate and sell our items on your website.” What’s an affiliate? I wondered. I then did what we all do: I Googled “get a free website” …
The results yielded what I deserved to see from the search – but seeing as this is a family show I won’t repeat what I read here. I then did a more realistic search “build a website” and up came a nice young lady who had an SBI! site. I thought, What’s SBI? I continued reading the lady’s home page, and I was hooked, or rather I was persuaded with common-sense information that SBI! was the “real deal” – chock full of business guidance that “the other” website hosts just don’t offer.
On December 23, 2010, I became the proud parent of a brand new bouncing baby website I’d decided to call Easy Food Dehydrating. And the rest, as they say, is history!
What do you enjoy most about being an online business owner?
The most enjoyable part of being an online website owner is the freedom.
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Freedom to work eighteen hour days if you want – and you will on occasion because you LOVE it!
The freedom of speech.
The freedom to create.
The freedom to be your own clichéd boss.
It’s all true. It’s all good.
Editor’s Note:
Susan isn’t the only one who values the freedom her e-business grants her. For more inspirational freedom quotes by everyday entrepreneurs, click here.
So far, what has been the biggest challenge for you?
Oh dear, the biggest challenge for me is to FOCUS. Easy Food Dehydrating hums along nicely and I get sidetracked into creating other SBI websites. I just LOVE going through the creative process of setting up sites (ask Ken Evoy how many sites I have started and have had to ‘let go’).
Prior to the engineering design work, I was a graphic artist and a typesetter, so creating websites was “right up my alley” which was rapidly turning into a motorway …
If you had to review SBI! for someone who never heard about it, which features or benefits would you highlight?
Just about every week I learn something new via SBI! One of the first things I do on a daily basis upon log in is to check out the “Launches, Resources, Alerts, and Features…” area. I must admit it’s a never-ending learning process as the world wide web is dynamic in nature.
SBI! has many benefits:
You don’t need a separate email provider; of course you can go with AWeber, or MailChimp et al but you don’t have to. You can send FREE auto responder emails in a series via SBI!. The other places? That costs around $30 a month at AWeber – and as soon as you do an auto responder series at MailChimp, their service does not remain free. How do I know? It pays to know what else is “out there.” This way, I know what a great deal I get with my SBI! investment. Everything’s included! Speaking of investment, I don’t know of any other business on the planet where you can begin with a monthly overhead of only THIRTY BUCKS. I mean, really!
You can create Newsletters – all included in your monthly, or yearly fee – depending on how you sign up. In other words, there are no surprises. And NO plugins. Yes, I’m referring to WordPress plugins. I have a couple of WordPress sites too as vanity sites (susangast.com being one) and it’s a royal pain (to me). I’m sure there are others who will disagree and say that WordPress is the best thing since sliced bread. I beg to differ. Nothing is more annoying than logging into a WordPress site and having to do umpteen plugin updates. With SBI!, all that is done behind the scenes. You just “log in” and start writing your pages.
If you get stuck, there are many eager folks on the forums who are ready, willing, and able to come to your rescue.
Another benefit of SBI! is they have superior technical support. ‘Nuff said.
With the rise of mobile traffic, what steps have you done to give your visitors the best experience on their smart phones and tablets?
To make sure that Google likes my site(!), I made sure to go fully responsive. Prior to that, I did go the route of the “mobile-friendly-feature” that SBI! had come up with in the interim. When I learned that fully responsive templates were available, I couldn’t wait to convert the site over and not have to worry how the pages would look on the mobile phone or tablet. (I admit, ANY excuse to change the look and feel of the site is like a drug to me).
Honestly, it was something I felt I had to do as my traffic for Smartphone visitors had doubled over the past few years. I mentioned Google at the beginning because I have AdSense on the site and Google will rank you higher in the mobile search results if you are “mobile friendly” which means more traffic and more clicks on the ads obviously.
Has your life changed since you started your site? Can you describe these changes for us?
Since starting Easy Food Dehydrating, I have become far more site-savvy and self-confident. I could NOT have done any of this without SBI!s comprehensive “Action Guide” and awesome technical support when needed.
Patience Gets Rewarded.
It’s been almost five years and I’ve been growing. I think I’m in the top 10% of all sites worldwide – thanks to Ken Evoy and his dedicated staff.
The site morphed into eBooks, a paperback, and video courses, and I am going to share with you all how I did that in subsequent posts.
About a week ago, I was happily startled to see an invite from Mother Earth News in my inbox. They wanted ME to blog on THEIR website. I could hardly believe it. I obliged!
And now today, I received an invite from Margit to write this blog post on the SiteSell BLOG. Happy days!
What one piece of advice would you give someone who is just getting started as an online entrepreneur?
The advice I would give is this:
If you have any entrepreneurial spirit at all – even just a tiny spark – then go for it.
Or, in the words of Virgin Airline’s founder Sir Richard Branson: “Screw It, Just Do It!!!” Seriously, all of us have one topic we know quite a lot about. See if you can put it into words, and follow Richard’s advice. Oh, and go with SBI! for ALL your website needs. You won’t regret it.
A second important piece of advice: proofread your work. Please have someone other than yourself proofread your work. It’s so hard to read your own prose because you just tend to see what you want to see – and not exactly what you think you’ve written. Ask a trusted friend or your spouse, or other family member, to give it “the once over.” At the very least, compose your pages in MSWord or the like and run a spell- and grammar-check before copying and pasting your text into your web page in Page Manager.
Editor’s Note:
Thank you Susan for sharing your SBI! review, and congratulations on being regarded by Mother Earth News as an authority site in your niche. Your entrepreneurial spirit has guided you well. I look forward to learn more about how you are monetizing your website.
Do you have any entrepreneurial streak in you, even a tiny spark? Then go for it, as Susan did, and let SBI! help you along the way.
Latest posts by Margit Streifeneder (see all)
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Try it. Simply follow the Video Action Guide. 
No strings. Better, actually...
