Built A Business and My Body

by Mario Fanzolato
(Montreal, Quebec {Canada})

I built a business around my passion for fitness. What other motivational catalyst can push you to get words on paper and then onto a Web page, on a consistent basis... if you're not writing about a hobby, or something you love and know about?

For me, money was never the driving force to start an e-business. Although it is important to any person's survival and opens the door to thriving in other areas of life, it's not something I focused on to drive me every single day.

What I did concentrate on was helping others who were interested in weight training, nutrition, and other aspects of muscle-building and fat-burning. I feel an extreme amount of joy when I think about being able to provide a solution to someone's problem.

Most of the information on my fitness site is offered completely free - The rest is offered for a simple e-mail sign-up to my newsletter or by subscribing to the social network section of my site.

One of the great benefits of this Web journey of mine (starting from a point where I didn't know how to use e-mail), was the ability to work from home. I did sell an e-book from quite early on, and make a few sales (and let me tell you, I've made more than one mistake along the way, and thereafter), but one decision I don't regret is starting an e-business which I can work on from anywhere as well as the hours convenient to me. Aside from the e-book, I also sell healthy/sports, nutritional supplements and a few other products.

I still offer personal training services in my local area, to make ends meet, but it's a great accomplishment for me knowing that I built a business and continue to build it independent from a boss, and am slowly but surely securing my financial future.

The journey is everything as they say.

I've learned about marketing, Web development, customer interaction, and much, much more. I've even become a different person in this process... one who went from being cynical (for example, thinking that the Internet is evil, and therefore not wanting to have anything to do with it), to embracing new challenges regularly.

You could probably tell that I've been bit by the self-help bug, and speaking of which, I've actually started a second site on the subject of personal development just recently.

My fitness site currently generates 400-500+ unique visitors per day, and my future plans entail converting that traffic into a greater number of sales (which is my weak point... Remember, I'm driven by a desire to help others).

I know that making money online is tough (when you're honest), but I also want all of you who are reading this to know that there's a difference between deceiving others, and promoting products/services that will genuinely help others to grow as a whole. It took me a while to come to terms with this.

Be proud of your business, and don't be afraid to position yourself as an expert and authority in your niche. Unfortunately, most people won't pay any attention to you if you don't... and, therefore, will never enjoy the luxuries attached to the solutions you offer.

For anyone who may be interested, my fitness site is located at Natural-Muscle-Mass.com.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention that working from home part-time has also allowed me to tap into my physical potential. As a result, I anticipate to be breaking a sort of world record related to natural bodybuilding very soon. And much of this has been made possible thanks to SBI.