Step 5: Research your mail provider

Or...Why MSN and Hotmail are just a really bad idea.

Hotmail was highly recommended to me a few days ago as being faster, less spam, etc. So I spent a few days researching the community forums to see just how satisfied the users are and what issues they are encountering to determine if Hotmail would work for me or not.

To my dismay here is what I learned about Hotmail. You of course should also do your own research and decide for yourself. I am not related to anyone in the examples. This is merely the results of my personal consumer research to decide if I too would like to be a hotmail user. And for me I will say No Thanks, but you decide.

At the time I write this there are well over 1579 complaints just in the past 24 hours! That's 65.79 complaints per hour.

Why? Well it seems that back on 01 September 2009, Microsoft thought they had found the solution to their hotmail servers being used for spamming. So they implemented a new "Anti-Spam System" and viola! You can get your account blocked, closed or even your IP address blacklisted for mailing your resume to potential employers, or using your cell-phone to send emails.

Now for the really cool part, if your contact has not set their email client options correctly, guess what? Yep, you get your account blocked, closed, or your IP address blacklisted. Even better when your account is in lock down those who email you may get their email returned with a note that informs them that your account is blocked for spamming, really cool if you happen to be a scout leader whom the parents have entrusted their children with.

Just a few of the things you cannot do with your hotmail account;

1. Forget using it to send your resume to potential employers.
http://windowslivehelp.com/community/t/131488.aspx
(Job seeker blocked for emailing her CV (Resume) to potential employers.)

2. Forget using it to communicate upcoming fund-raisers for scouts.
http://windowslivehelp.com/community/p/129013/480143.aspx#480143
(Pack leader blocked for informing parents of upcoming popcorn sale.)

3. Forget using it to communicate news, events, debate schedules, etc. if you are a member of a school club.
http://windowslivehelp.com/community/p/120873/454906.aspx#454906
(Secretary of high school key club blocked for sending newsletter to club members.)

4. Forget using it to communicate with team members, other teams, etc. if you are part of youth sports or sports in general.
http://windowslivehelp.com/community/p/29019/118332.aspx#118332
(Secretary of youth football league blocked for sending invites to other league secretaries for upcoming tournaments.)

The list goes on forever, Microsoft claims it is necessary to prevent spamming. Hmmm, if I was a spammer would I go through the trouble of asking Microsoft to unblock my account so I can spam some more? Really?

Wow, what's really sad is there are many "Paid Premium Subscribers" who get blocked and no refund and no account, because you didn't have your email client options set right and it misidentified Joey's Graduation Invite as spam, all because Joey didn't phrase the subject line just right. Now Joey has to subscribe again, hopefully not, to hotmail's premium services.

Or how about this, Joey doesn't know that you changed ISP's and have a new email address or simply you changed it because the old one was boring, yep Joey's mail gets returned and Joey gets blocked, or closed because he also had Auntie May's old email too, and it also get's returned.

Maybe Microsoft is where old politicians go when finally voted out of office. The above links are provided to demonstrate Microsoft's continual commitment to the highest level of Customer No-Service and Dissatisfaction.

Google's gmail and YahooMail don't look that bad after all.

Follow any one of the above links and look at the "In the past 24 hours" numbers and divide by 24 that's how many people have posted a new question to the sending limits forum, mostly complaining that their account is blocked or closed. Look at the time-stamp on the unanswered questions and you will see some still waiting days later to be answered. Look at the bottom of the page and you will see how many pages there currently are of these questions. Many question threads have multiple users asking why their account is blocked or closed.

And as usual it is the user, their software, computer or their ISP that is at fault and NOT Microsoft's new and improved "Anti-Spam" system. Strange that problem was almost non-existant prior to 01 September 2009.

While it may be that you will get a little more spam than hotmail with gmail or yahoomail, at least you wont get your account blocked because Marcus forgot to add you to his approved sender list.

Make sure you thoroughly research your mail provider before signing up especially if you will be paying them a fee for the service.

Always get back on that bike and keep peddling down the road to your success!

Cheers!

Step 4. The Really Really Secret to Success!

Is there really a Secret to success on the Internet?

Yes there is, and here is the number one really really secret. Persistence, Persistence, and even more Persistence!

Ever try to learn something you had no idea how to do? Remember how you finally learned how to do it well? You had to keep trying and keep trying, even though you kept failing and kept failing, and eventually you did succeed in acquiring the know ledge and skills necessary to do it. And in no time at all you were able to do it well.

Remember how that success felt the first time and then how it felt each time you got better at it than before?

That's the secret, keep trying and you will eventually succeed at what you are attempting. Doesn't matter if it is making a second income on the internet or trying to lose weight and live a healthier life style. You be persistent and you succeed. You be impatient and you fail. Pretty much cut and dried.

To make money on the internet you first need to learn the ropes, how to it is done. That means you learn the techniques that are comfortable for you, there are more techniques than you can possibly imagine. If you choose a technique that is comfortable and easy to understand you will actually stick to it and with persistence you will succeed with it. If it is uncomfortable for you or is hard to learn you will, like everyone else, will give up on it because it is a pain in the posterior region. If you had to walk 20 miles to work and back you would look for something closer wouldn't you, because 20 miles each way is too much work for the money. But if you only had to walk 1 mile each way, you could do that in your sleep. Same thing, if it is realitively easy to learn and do, you will do it and, if it is hard to do you are less likely to do it. That's just the nature of all things, even a river flows through the easiest route to the ocean.

When first starting out I recommend information based products, selling what you already know to those who want to know it. The reason is that it takes very little money to get started, only a few hours of your time to create the product, once it is created you can sell it over and over again forever. You only need to spend a few hours a day marketing it and zero time shipping it. Information products are delivered digitally via the internet. You can upload them once to a production facility that will burn the CD/DVD and handle the packaging and shipping for a small fee everytime someone orders one. It is really that simple, "Create it, set it, market it." The marketing is the hardest part of all, about a hour or two at least once or twice a week.

You have got to be joking!
Am I? You can find out really easy, check out Russell Brunson's "Do You Suck at Making Money" and follow Zoobie the Internet Marketing Noobie. Zoobie like all of us who at one time knew nothing about how to make money on the internet, until he discovered marketing and how to apply it. You will the basics like, what are infromation products and how to create them, what is marketing and how to use it to make your own income, what resources are available and how to find them, how to get started down the road to your own success in marketing, and much more.

I would have to say that it would be time well spent to go through it and learn the basics and see that, yes it is really that easy and simple to do.

Until next time, remember that success requires persistence, persistence, and more persistence.

Cheers!

Ps. Don't forget to feed the fish at the bottom of the page.

Time for Spring Cleaning in the Middle Summer

I find that I owe you, my readers an appology. I had promised that I would get back on track with the series since I last posted on 24 July, 2009. And now look it is almost the 29th. Wow, where did the time go?

Well I owe you an explanation for the delay. Let me answer by giving a very valuable word of advice, and I am certain that any readers who happen to have been married for at 19 years as I am, will concur. When your spouse asks, the politically correct word for demand, you to go through the house and get rid of the stuff you do not use anymore it can take several days. Why? Because you first throw the stuff you know without a doubt you'll never use again, but then you have to return to the pile of stuff you are not sure about and sort through it trying to come up with excuses why you should keep it. You might need it someday, like in 2910 or sometime, but I am making progress, I think another couple of days and the "Stuff" should be a much smaller. and less noticeable, pile that I should be able to get away with until at least next year. Guys out there now what I am talking about, while most of the gals are trying to resolve my ip addresses so they can try and let my wife have a heads up on the situation.

If my wife happens to be reading this just ignore the previous paragraph, it is not real honest.

Anyway, I thought I would try and get through Step 3, whilst I had a chance.

Step 3.
Why you can't get Rich Overnight
Yes, I have touched on this a long time ago, but I still get lots of people asking why it's happening to them. So let's take another look at the process.

I read all over the internet of people getting rich overnight, why can't I?
Why?, Because it just doesn't happen like that. Sure there are exceptions and those exceptions are the ones you are reading about. But honestly, you have a better chance of either winning the PowerBall Jackpot, all six numbers plus the powerball, or getting struck by lighting. And getting struck by lighting is even more likely than getting the PowerBall Jackpot or Making Millions on the internet overnight.

So how do you get rich on the internet? SLOWLY and with PATIENCE. If you can master those two you got it made. Yep, it takes both time and patience to make money on the internet, or anywhere else for that matter. Why? Because you got to generate traffic and then get that traffic to buy.

Let's say you make Crappie Jigs, Crappie are a fish in case you were wondering, and you plan to sell them at 6 for $1.00. If you don't tell anyone on the internet about them and where to get them, what are your odds of selling even 1? NONE. So now we have to get a website up touting the benefits of your Crappie Jigs and how to order them. That takes a day or two, longer if you need to locate someone to make the page for you. Now it's been a couple of days and we have our fancy looking website all coded up, now we will be making the big bucks right? Um, No. Now that we have our site up, we now must show people how to get there and how to order. Yep, even though you have your website up and active, the rest of the world does not even know it exists, yet.

Now we got a website, but how do we make money with it?
We now have to get people to our site. This is called driving traffic, simply put you nee to let people know the site is there and give them a reason to go check it out. And once they are there you need to intice them to buy what you are offering. Remember, you only make money when they buy.

Now depending on how much time you commit to your product, you can be making money in as little as 48hrs. But most, will start making money sometime during the first month. Because you are probably like most of us. You still need to get a few bugs worked out, decide on what email services you want to use, what formats you want to deliver, looking for more places to advertise on without spending more money, etc., etc.

To really make the real money, you have to patient and make each decision count. Pick a marketing strategy and stick to it. If you keep trying to change horses midstrem you will get nothing but wet. I recommend Micro-Continuity for information products and Arictle Marleting for non-information products.

I recommend considering information products and using Micro-Continuity to market them. Why? Because it is probably the least work intense of all products.

But no matter what your product is, you will make nothing until you first make the commitment to market it. And then, over time you will make money. There is no "Get Rich Overnight' secrets, ask anyone who actually makes a living on the internet. Check out ConquerYourNiche, a forum for internet marketing, some the top-notch brains in the industry hang out here. And by the way you can joing for free, no problem. I recommend this forum to all my clients, because you by joing for free you get to hang with some of the "best of the best" and you get to pick their brains when you need to. If you check it out, you are sure to find replies to people just like you who were asking, "Why am I not making millions overnight, like all the hyped-up claims?" And you will see that they are saying pretty much the same thing, "It takes time and patience..." to be successful, and some times even failing before you get there.

One parting thought,
Once you do get in the money, be smart with it! Give some to your favourite charity or church or both. Take Dave Ramsey's Class on Financial Peace and Financial Peace University. He will teach you how to be a good steward of your money. So many people make it to the money, only to lose it all, due to financial ignorance. So educate yourself, and then you will not only get rich, but you will stay rich.



Until next time, remember you should be the only one responsible for yourself. Then you have no worries, you can handle it. Quit making excuses, and do something about it!

Cheers!

Time for fishin'

Don't worry, I haven't forgot, I just took a day off to go harass some fish.

And believe me, when you watch me fly fish, you would probably call it harassing the fish too.

I love fly fishing more than drowning worms, and my "herd" of worms are probably grateful for that. I raise worms to sell to the local fishermen in my neighbourhood.

It was pretty nice, a little windy and hot, but not bad. The fish obviously found me entertaining as I did not get one strike until about dusk. I figure maybe they started feeling sorry for me and tricked the noobie fish into striking by saying, "Oh am I full, no, you go ahead and have that black gnat, snicker, nice knowin' ya." 5 hours on the lake and 3 Crappie and 1 Rainbow Trout to show for it. The guy near me using a jig got about a dozen Crappie in the same time frame. So I know the fish were well entertained.

So why am I sharing this with you? If you remember in Step 2, and if not scroll down and read Step 2, I told you to make time to relax and share time with friends or go fishing or camping. Well, that's what I did today, I took time to relax and go fishing and now I am sharing my experience with you. And it was pretty nice to get away from the computer for a few hours and match wits with aquatic creatures, though from the looks of my efforts I might have been out smarted. But the mosquitoes are well fed today anyway.

So relax and I will move onto Step 3 by tomorrow, 25 July 2009.

Cheers!

Step 2 Where do you want to be?

Where do you want to be?
Where do you want to be financially in the very near future? This is probably the most important question you need to ask yourself right now and to answer right now. Because this is your first goal and you need to be reasonable. We all want to make a bazillion bucks, but that's not going to happen overnight or even in 12 months, probably not even possible. -Is a bazillion a real number?

Okey, then what do you mean?
What I mean is for you to step back and take a look at your present situation, and consider what improvement would you like to see. For example, say you make $300/week at Walter's Big Box Mart. You already know that you are limited to what that job pays and you are not getting anything more than that. But are you really satisfied with that, can you meet your expenses and still have money left over for the things you really would like to do? Probably not.

So, you currently make $300/week but would really like to add another $300/week to that. Okey cool, so how are you going to do it, and how much time do you want to do it in?

This is your first goal. So we decided on an extra $300/week and think we can get there in 30 days. So now we have set our goal of adding $300/week in income within the next 30 days.

So now that is out of the way, we will check our progress as we go along to see if we are getting to our goal or not. Remember, I said to be reasonable? I said that because so many people starting out set very unrealistic goals, like the bazillion dollars, and when the reach their checkpoints they are no where even close to their goals. And as a result they give up and quit because they don't see it happening.

Set your goals very low, you can raise them if you have exceeded them early.

You met your goals now what?
Now you set a new goal. Remember the $300 goal? Let's say that after 30 days, not only did you reach your goal of $300/week but you actually reached $450/week. Set your next goal to maybe 1.5X what did achieve. So if you reached $450/week that would mean setting your new goal to $450 X 1.5 or $675 over the next 30 days. By do this you will find that you are really in control of your income, and not at the mercy of your employer.

But what if I missed my goal?
Now you are at the 30 day mark, but haven't reached your goal of $300/week? Don't quit, step back and look at the situation. Did you make any money at all, and how much? How much time to and effort did you really put into achieving your goal?

There is no get rich secrets, what you make is proportional to your efforts. Put only a little effort into achieving your goal and you will only get a little close to your goal. Put a lot of effort into achieving your goal and you will reach your a whole lot faster and probably exceed it.

Time and effort is the key. What time and effort is what your devote to learning, researching new ways to promote what is your products, even new ways to reach people that you are not using at the moment. Say for example you are only posting to a blog, how many are you posting to and what could happen if you doubled that number? Or what if, in addition to your blog, you add a link to your product's website in your email or forum signature so every time you send an email to someone you are sending a link to your product or every time you make a post or reply in a forum you are also showing a link to your product. How much closer to exceeding your goal would you be then.

Think about this while checking out one of the products listed to the left and don't forget to feed the fish at the bottom of the page.

Cheers!

Step 1. What do I need to get started?

You don't need a whole lot really, just a desire to succeed and the willingness to learn. Besides that all you need is the commitment to take responsibility for your own success and failures. That's it in a nutshell.

So let's get started.

First you need access to the internet and since you are reading this, you obviously have that.

Now, you need a basic understanding of how to market, promote or sell, products on the internet. I hope you took advantage of the special offers listed to the left of this post or followed the links in the previous post.

If you did not, you should do it now so you can have a better understanding of what I will be talking about over the next several days.

If you just got here, don't panic just click on one of the banners to the left and take advantage of the special offer and in a matter of a few hours you will be upto speed with us and this will all start to make sense.

Here we go...

What is Marketing?
Marketing is telling others about the following:

1. Who you are.
2. What you have.
3. Why They Need It.
4. Where Can They Get it.

So lets take a look at the 4 W's.

• Who you are. Who are you? i.e. C.R. Webcraft
• What you have. What are you offering the customer? i.e. I can teach you how to be self-sufficient and to take responsibility for yourself in just a matter of weeks, if you are willing to make a commitment to do just that.
• Why They Need It. Why does the customer need what I am offering? i.e. If you do not take responsibility for yourself then you leave the decisions concerning you life's direction up to someone else, such as your employer or worse...your government.
• Where Can They Get It. Where is it the customer can get what you are offering. i.e. Right here and from the sponsors. I am offering the basics, but you really should consider getting the entire education, you will be far better off to learn all you can. The basics I give you for free to get you started, but to get the maximum benefit you really should do the homework.
  

It is really as simple as that! Well, sorta, kinda, well okey it is a little more involved.
More involved it is, you will need to know what are you going to market, how to market it, and where to market it. And if you did your homework you would already know what I am talking about. So if you, skipped out on the homework, do it now. Click on the banners to the left or the links in the previous post. This is important, you need to understand what I'll be covering over the next few days and it is well worth every penny, believe me. You will not believe the difference it will make in your life until you actually make the change.

Anyway, to break it down, you will need to decide who you are. In most states and provinces you will most likely need to obtain a business license. No big deal here, you can usually just go down to either your city or county office and for a small fee obtain a license. I recommend this as it makes you a legitimate business, you can use your name or use a fictitious name (a dba or doing business as). If you plan on selling taxable goods or services, you will also need to obtain a sellers permit or tax-permit, this is usually obtained from the state or provincial office. And if you will be employing other people you will also need an Employer Identification Number, which you can obtain free of charge in most cases from your federal government tax office. Although it is very tempting to do this all "Under The Table" or "Off The Books", I would advise against it simply because the penalties for not being legitimate are too high. It is cheaper to comply than it is to lie.

Okey, I got all that now what?
Now, what are you going to market? What are you wanting to promote or sell?
Here's an idea. What is your favourite hobby? Write down step by step how, I could learn to do what it is you do as a hobby. Surprise!, you just created your first product. A how-to course about your favourite hobby. To learn how to make money with it you will need to get either one of these two products, and if you did your homework you would already have them. Get either Do You Suck at Making Money or Micro-Continuity, both will show you how to make money marketing information products.

So you have answered questions 1 and 2 on to 3 and 4.
Now you must convince the prospective customer that you have what they need, and that your product is the solution they are looking for. So let us say that you have an information product on how to build high performance spud-guns. Your job now is to convince me, the prospective customer, that by purchasing your ebook on high performance spud-guns I will learn the techniques for building spud-guns that out perform those of my friends, family and neighbours. You will need to decide will this product be a one-time purchase or subscription based purchase. That's why you should do the homework, because you would know which one you want to do.

Now that I am convinced, how do I get this information and how will I be paying for it. You will need to decide how you want to deliver the product I am purchasing, will it be an ebook, video course, email based, DVD, CD Audio, mp3. How will you be charging me for the product, will be a one time price, a subscription, etc. The reason for the homework is to make you aware of the many different delivery formats, and to give you an idea of how each would apply to information based products (How To's, etc.)

Give this some serious thought, check out the products I have recommended and check back, I will add more either today or tomorrow.

How to get started making your own money

By now you are probably wondering how you get started making your own money.

What do I need, what if I don't know the first thing about marketing, what if I don't have a product, what if I don't how to sell, etc.

There are probably at least a dozen more what if questions, but you don't to worry about them. Any of them for that matter.

We are going to explore a few of them today and over the next few days, so you can get a feel for just how easy it really is to make your own income. I had thought about doing this all in one post, but it would make the post just way too long and would become boring to read. You want to take it slow, much like eating an elephant, and digest one piece at a time.

First: What do I need?
If you are reading this blog, you already got it. A way to connect to and browse the internet, an email account will be very handy to have, I recommend a gmail account because besides being free has much less spam mail than yahoo or many of the other free email accounts.

You will also need to make the commitment to spend at least 1 to 2 hours a day devoted to learning and earning. If you have very little or no marketing skills, don't panic, you will need to spend about 6 hours of learning time to get the basics. And it is time well spent.

I recommend you check out:
Russell Brunson's Micro-Continuity is by far one the best marketing strategies I have found, Russell has taken the best features of several popular strategies and put them together in way that anyone, even me, can learn to make money. You will see what Micro-Continuity is, have an opportunity to get a free mp3 player with 6 hours of training on it, and a 14 day free trial to the entire training course.

TheSecondTier which is probably the best source for free training for Affiliate Marketing, selling or promoting other people's products or services. You learn about Affiliate Marketing, you get products to promote, the staff are friendly and always willing to help. There is a live web-meeting every Monday hosted by the Affiliate Managers Brent and Garrett, where you find out about upcoming promotions and you can ask questions. There are contests periodically with different prizes for each level of sales and for the Top Producer during the contest.

ConquerYourNiche an excellent forum related to marketing. There you be in constant contact with some of the best Internet Marketers in the world. You can join for free, once you join you can ask questions, participate in discussion, share ideas, even work on marketing projects with other members.

Do You Suck at Making Money is the must have of marketing primers, learn how to make money by giving away stuff for free. Yes, that's not a typo, make money by giving away stuff for free. Follow along with Zoobie, and you learn the basics of information products and how to make money with them by giving stuff for free.

I suggest you start like this:

1. Get Do You Suck at Making Money if you are totally new to marketing.
1a. Get Russell Brunson's Micro-Continuity if you wanting a far better way to make money.
2. Join ConquerYourNiche so you can have access to some of the greatest minds in marketing world for free.
3. Join TheSecondTier to get your free Affiliate Marketing Training and the resources to be successful at it
4. Check back for the next post where we get into the nitty-gritty of getting started. I will be referring to some of things in each of those products and services above, so do your homework and I'll see you tomorrow.