My quest to financial freedom

Well Howdy

2011-04-21T18:57:00.000-07:00

Been a while hey little blog 'o mine?!

I needed a long time out from everything. Just re-evaluate my life and figure out what I wanted from it. I've still kept thinking of being financially free of course...that's my lifelong goal, to be "free".

I thought long and hard about things relating to my money making endeavors, as well as words that were said to me that made me realize what the big hurdle for me was. So this is partly the reason why I haven't done anything really in the realm of business. I have been busy studying trading since October though. Pretty intensely. I'm getting somewhere with it, but I've still got a long ways to go before I feel comfortable playing with real money. But in the mean time I'll just put money away to build myself an account for when I am ready. There's a lot more to it than what all the ads everywhere will make you think. It is definitely NOT a get rich quick undertaking. I'm most likely looking at 1 year before I MIGHT be comfortable trading real money. My goal is to have 3 profitable months trading demo before going live. To prove myself that I can do it.

Anyway, that's on the trading side. Or paper assets side. Now onto the business end of things.

I've done NOTHING related to business since my last update. Like really...NOTHING!

My last idea had the same thing happen to it that all my other ideas have. I convinced myself that it wouldn't work. I jumped in without thinking more about the concept.

Anyway, that led me to tell myself that I'm not going to pursue another business idea UNLESS I can answer all of my questions, feel that the business satisfies all of my needs, and I really feel that it has potential.

Now I feel I do have it. The business relates to the thing that's made me feel the BEST emotions that I've felt: Charity. I came up with the concept while looking at other concepts and answering the questions for those business ideas. Then this one stuck with me. The idea is simple, has unlimited potential, and I will love it.

I really can't find too many objections to NOT go through with this idea. The objections that I do have are things that all businesses will have though. Not that big of a deal.

On another note, I've noticed a big change in the whole marketing community. One of the big things is that, what I knew would happen, happenned. The google slap on all those affiliate marketers using ppc for their crappy sites. This opens up room for all the smarter marketers out there.

I haven't checked the prices for ppc, but with all the advertisers gone, prices for lower placement ( still in first page ) should be available for really good prices. I quickly checked out the scene in yahoo and bing and found all the ppc ads were pretty much unrelated to searches most of the time. BUT from big players with cash. Not to worry though, I've got so many traffic sources that just those 2 won't be enough to stop me. I just need to make the traffic convert.

I have the website up and I'm just waiting for programmers to finish customizing the template to my liking. Which should be any day now. Today I've been building templates for the pages I'll be making. Oh yeah, I'm using wordpress for the site for ease of publication. Should work well enough for my purposes.

I've got an account with aweber as well and now I just need to work on some of the necessary pages like privacy policies and contact, etc. After that's done, I'm pretty sure it'll simply be a matter of starting to post content! I'll only need to get a good system to getting my content done, and then everything should just fall into place!

I'm sure I'm being overly optimistic, but better to be optimistic than be down and depressed all the time. Positive energy, brings positive results.

Time to get back into this journey of mine!
JR

Whoa....ok, it's been too long

2010-02-07T23:41:00.000-08:00

Hey there!!

Wow, I can't believe it's been since friggin SEPTEMBRE since I last updated this blog!! A LOT has changed in my life since then...Some good, some bad, but I'm coming out of it stronger than I've ever been.

Business wise, I've been sort of lost for the last couple of months, which is why I haven't posted mostly. Everything I came up with, just didn't trigger anything in me...I've gone through wanting to do sites on everything, to making an internet marketing hosting company, to a "charity" sort of site, to real estate, and most likely some other stuff that I can't remember.

But through all of the events that have happenned to me lately, an idea for a business came out of it. It came up quite unexpectedly as well. Since I came up with the original idea with no intentions of making money from it, it was just for fun. But as I thought more about it, I thought...wow...there's A LOT of possibilities with this idea...like ALMOST INFINITE! I can seriously make a big business out of this idea. affiliate, info products, physical products, advertising, name it, I can most likely do it with this one. AND, it's something that's close to my heart. So everything about it will scream passion from my end.

The site is already up, it's just the question of polishing it up a bit before I start the marketing for it, which I've already planned out as well.

Joined a couple of affiliate networks as well, so it's really just a question of building the site proper, and sending traffic. Oh yeah, I won't have to do much coding for this site because I wanted this site to be easy this time around, so I'm using Wordpress. So yeah, it'll be a blog type of site. It'll be split into 2 types of posts: The helpfull articles, and personal posts!

Using the personal posts, like I do on this here blog, I'd like to build trust with the people who come to my site. Kinda like how marketers present their stories in salesletters, but on a bigger scale.

Anyway, I'll show you the site onces it's like I want it to be and presentable...graphic wise, it is, but still not finished. Little things that annoy me like contact pages and "about' pages.

Hopefully next update will continue to be positive!

cya!
JR

Affiliate business it is...

2009-09-16T16:02:00.001-07:00

Alright, so because of the new changes in my life, I'll change my business goals towards one that's aimed towards a mainly affiliate based business model.

I'll be using wordpress for fast site building and editing. Already got the idea for the first site I'll be doing. Mainly because it's a niche I know very well and I already have a content creation plan for it.

I'll wait for it to reach a certain level of income before moving on to the next. I'll also use it as a "tester" of sorts for all sorts of techniques I assume...

Oh yeah, learned about a whole bunch of cool new resources today. So I have even more stuff in my traffic arsenal. I just need to friggin DO SOMETHING and stop talking about it...

I also can't let go of this forex thing...I just see so much potential in it. I need to find a way to master it. I'm going to keep practicing and learning more about it. Until I can show a good income from the demo account.

It sucks that I'll have to put a hold on the business because of the new job...but oh well, putting food on the table is priority #1. Being an affiliate marketer won't be so bad either. It'll give me time to practice all those strategies I've learned over the years finally. Show myself that I know what I'm doing. While earning a part time income I'm hoping...

Good news, and bad news...

2009-09-15T13:46:00.000-07:00

Well...good news is I got myself a job! So there's finally gonna be money coming in.

The bad news is that this job has me working in a secluded area for 2 weeks at a time, without my own internet connection. So I'm now trying to think of ways to still keep the business going with this new challenge...

I HAVE internet access at the site, just it's a sort of room that everyone has access to, so not the best spot to conduct business...Unless I can find something that I could build an affiliate business out of...

Either that, or change the page every 2 weeks to a place holder, squeeze page to have people who're interested sign up...But then I'm missing a big part of my business...

More challenges...*sigh*

future of project looks bright!

2009-09-10T15:23:00.000-07:00

So I've been sort of trimming the fat off the plan, building it into something that makes more sense. Now I think it's at a point where I'm satisfied with it.

I also started thinking about what my goals were with this site. How much do I want to make with it? Wanted to know this so I could reverse engineer it. So I did that and pretty happy with the plan. I based my numbers on a 1% conversion ratio, and a .10$/visitor cost. Just to get estimates you know.

With a very low marketing budget of 50$ on the first month, the plan is do-able.

Now I want to plan the day to day activities. As well as the marketing strategies.

Having reverse engineered the plan gives me something positive to look forward to. It's like visual confirmation that this can work. And if I get higher conversion ratios than 1%, or if I can get customers for cheaper than .10$, then the plan becomes even better.

Anyway, off to work on my plans again!

Almost time to build it

2009-09-09T08:18:00.000-07:00

Finished my list of ideas ( for now ). By the end of it, I see that I have several different milestones that I'd need to take care of, as well as a need to figure out how I'd market these. Because I had an idea of how I was going to market this site ( as in the angle I would take ) but with the first milestone, I most likely couldn't use such an angle. So I just made a list of the milestones as well as how I'll market them.

The marketing plan needed to follow my original plan as well. Which is to be massively scalable if need be. Which I'm glad to say it is. I can start very small, and keep on going bigger and bigger.

So...I don't really think there's anything else really...I'll do a keyword research to see what the market looks like and make a search on the industry to see where it's going and how it's been doing most likely. If all looks good, then I guess it'll be time to build it!

HUGE amount of ideas for business

2009-09-08T10:44:00.001-07:00

Hiya,

I have a HUGE HUGE ( huge ) load of ideas for the new business. I started las t night by just doing a small word ducoment called business ideas. Where the only criteria is put down any idea that came to mind. I'd take o ut the useless after. But I'm finding A LOT of gems within these ideas.

I checked out my competition last night until 2 am, which was around 30 something sites. Checking what made them tick, and the sort of efforts they did to capture customers and keep them...I'm pretty surprised that most of the competitors just do the bare minimum...I have a serious amount of ideas that would propel my business design ahead of any of them...I just need for them to not copy what I'm doing immediately because they already have the deep pockets...

Seriously though, I'm really seeing the potential. I think most of these ideas are comping from my "make the absolute best offers you can give them!!" attitude. As well as the "do whatever it takes to make them buy ( legally of course...)" attitude. I'm just coming up with all sorts of special offers and discounts and other crazy things. Also expanding on the niche and offering something the niche isn't even offering at the moment which is leaving a lot of money on the table in my opinion.

Now to get a little more familiar with coding a site so that I can put all of these into action when the time comes.

forex is a no go...

2009-09-07T11:01:00.000-07:00

Sooooo guess I should maybe update this little blog of mine right about now.

First off, the forex experience. Strategies haven't worked AT ALL...For some reason, they work tremendously well when you do all sorts of testing on dead candles "movements that have already passed". But when it comes to trading live, it almost never does what you expect it to do!! The experts tell you " when this happens, it's a buy signal!! " and they go on to tell you how that's true by looking at their charts...but a lot of times they tell also tell you " and here, this is a ( insert name of formation ) it might not look like it should normally but because of such and such circumstances, it is." So it kinda makes you wonder...are they all making this bullshit up?

Anyway, because of this monumental loss in confidence that was this experience in forex, I'm thinking more and more about business again. There's just one thing though, I'm not sure what my schedule will be like in the near future to run a full fledge business. Since I might be getting a job in the mines where they have shifts of 2 weeks on, 2 weeks off. If I can have online access over there, then fine, business can continue, but if not...then that would be a problem.

I would pretty much have to build an affiliate business to start off...which I'm not really a fan of at the moment...I'd really rather do a full on business. Since I got a really good idea for one in the last week.

One good thing about the job, is that I'd most likely be able to make enough to afford building the site that I want to have...That video with John Reese and Tony Robbins was also very inspiring to push me to take action.

So yeah...for anybody who wants to try forex...I don't suggest it unless you have A LOT of time to learn...I'm most likely going to keep on practicing until I get it. Because I don't want to just give up. But I am thinking of pulling out my funds from the account I created. Since I'm clearly not ready to be trading live money.

EDIT: wow, good news, I might be able to start my website with only 300$. All the stuff I'm looking to implement in it are free open source software! I'll just need to put in the time to learn to customize them though...that will be the hard part. But definitely needed...

started forex today!

2009-08-12T15:51:00.000-07:00

Hey there!

been a while! Well, I'm in my new hometown up north in Yellowknife.

I put 1000$ in a trading account with fxcm for trading forex. I started out with my original plan and saw some flaws creep up. So I tweaked it a bit and now since yesterday, the plan that I've come up with seems to be going well for me! It's just small amounts though. I started out with micro lots, which enables you to invest using only 2.50$ per lot. The returns aren't that high right now, but I'm just getting my feet wet and making sure I'm making consistent profits instead of the other way around.

I also had to change my way of thinking a little bit. I was getting ideas of grandeur, about making money fast with my old strategy...but that changed quickly. Now the frame of mind is more towards managing my money, and 1$ is better than -1$. Because with the old strategy. I didn't mind taking losses, because I made money back with the big moves. But it's not that easy in practice to spot those little moves that lose you money, and those add up quickly...

Now I have a stop loss, with a trail of 100 pips. Which means if my trade happens to go down 100 pips, I automatically sell. It also means I'm only willing to lose 10$. That's my limit. But putting a trail also means that my stop loss goes up, with the trade. So if my trade goes up significantly, it locks in profits sorta.

Not really doing anything else right now since....I don't have my other stuff here...but oh well...It's still fun :) hopefully I can make my plan work!!

Cya!

forex strategy gives 4000% return!!!

2009-07-16T11:30:00.001-07:00

So I decided to do some backtracking to see how my strategy would have fared if I would have traded exactly like I would have in the past months. So I did july...and from the 1st to the 16th, it gave me a return of 5574%....so I thought that could have probably just been a fluke...so to make sure, I checked may and june as well.

And the results were May 5288%, June 4487%...So I guess I have a winning system!! An Unbelievable one at that...those are HUGE numbers...In fact, the membership product I bought was touting 2900% as it's biggest strategy returns.

The system still needs a little tuning to help prevent losses and jack the return even higher though.

I'm really excited right now...like REALLY...

Discovered my own Forex strategy!!

2009-07-09T09:16:00.000-07:00

yeah....so me and the girlfriend got a demo account for trading forex. Until now...forex doesn't like us at all...

Yeah, I'm applying all the strategies I've been told from the site and they almost NEVER work...Not good...so I started reading this other site www.babypips.com. It really kicks ass. Plus, I really love the way the site is made. The design, and colors, as well as the content. This is the kind of content that I want on a site. The articles keep you interested in a subject that can be really overwhelming. It might be my all time fav site design wise. I'll be sure to use it as reference for my own projects hehe.

Anyway, while reading this site and experimenting on my forex software, I noticed a sort of trend. I mean, a trend with a certain signal, and that lead to adding another signal, and another. Until finally, I think I built my very own trading strategy...I've been observing the charts since the beginning of the month and the signals work almost every time. And it's not a strategy which gives little reward, it goes for the big moves in the trend, and tells you where to exit.

Now, I'm pretty damn happy about this finding...but I have to prove it works now...That I'm not just imagining things...

Other than that, I've been thinking about my website a lot too. Like what I could offer that people would like. It got me thinking about how people like to be told what to do instead of having to learn...so I think I'll be using that factor in my product.

Anyway, I don't want to go to sleep right now because I want to try out my new strategy...but I have to....

learning more than forex

2009-07-08T09:58:00.000-07:00

Well, that forex site I joined has finally started to give me some usefull stuff. I'm starting to "get" strategies that they talk about. After a little practice, I should be able to make some money in this market. Hoping at least...

But this site isn't just making me learn about forex. This site is also telling me how they're getting their content. And it's pretty much exactly the way I was talking about yesterday. They're getting most of their content from professional!

Not only that, they seem to team up with other sites as well, giving them only PART of their material, as a way to entice us customers to try and buy their products as well I suppose. Which is a win for the content supplier because he gets proven buyers to look at his material. And what better marketing than getting great content. Kinda makes you wonder what else he has in store.

So I think I'll keep the membership idea for my product idea instead of lots of products. I'll really just need to team up with what people consider professionals. Team up with people who people will listen to. As well as team up with people who already have products to offer...

Anyway, it's an interesting strategy for the site.

Now I kinda have to wait a bit before getting hosting for the site though...since I'm moving and most likely won't have internet access for a around a month...So I'll just concentrate on doing it later.

Pretty much the same thing with the forex thing...can't really start until I get over there.

sigh....more changes

2009-07-07T09:48:00.000-07:00

ok....again with realizations that lead to changes...

read some threads on warrior forum yesterday. Which planted some doubt into my mind...doubts that I've already had plenty of times with this product of mine. Which is credibility...

Then words of my girlfriend kinda resound in my head.

Everything is basically asking: "If your a normal person, looking for help...Do you go see a guy who claims to know a lot, or see a professional who does it for a living?"

Obviously, you go see the professional...

So, I need to change the tactic once again...

I'm still going to keep the newsletter idea, but I think I'll merge it with creating a blog. Something like what Michel Fortin is doing. I like his model. Sending updates of new articles by newsletter. And making quality content, avaible for everyone to comment on.

I didn't really like the idea of blogs...but with speed being of great importance to me right now...I'll give it a go!

So I guess the new tactic now is giving the information that I was going to be giving as paid content, for free...so "what are you going to do for a product?" you say?

I'll give them what they want. I'll find professionals who want to team up for a share of revenue, and create products with them. Hoping that this won't be too hard to find. I know of good places to find them. I'll also see if I can make some licensing deals for products already done. I don't really have a membership product idea at the moment...but that'll come soon enough...

I guess I'll start off as an affiliate of the market!...soooooo going right back to the concept I had a couple of months ago basically....but with a more specific niche.

I also joined a forex membership site today. Been spending a bit of time reading stuff on there. And boy...my head is in "WTF?!!" mode right now...there's too much techy stuff at the moment...I hope it becomes a little clearer...

planning membership site

2009-07-06T06:55:00.001-07:00

OK, so decided I was going to be doing the membership site first. So now I'm trying to just figure out how it'll all work. Like, since I'm aiming to be a "reporter", what sources I'll be picking the get my information from.

I'm thinking of also licensing some stuff. Or at least try to...Anything to raise value!

I already have a couple or sources down for gathering info, magazine sources and online sources. I think I'll also add forums as some sources. Should provide a good amount of info, as well as good topics to develop.

Other than that, I'm trying to figure out the design of the site itself. Like, the story I'll tell for the salesletter, what payment processor I'll use, and all that. The little things that will make the site run. I want it simple to implement, and cheap.

So off to more planning!

which to do first...?

2009-07-03T09:40:00.000-07:00

So, still doing some planning...

Thinking about community building this time. Building loyalty and such. Making people come back.

Now, the plan as of now is building a relationship with my subscribers. But they're only building a relationship with me...But, building a community, they're building relationships with a lot of people, with the community itself.

So I'm thinking of implementing a community into my affiliate business ventures. Not really sure yet about if I should implement it into my membership site...since the goal is that I want to become the go to guy.

I also thought that if I build a community, I could use this community to build extra stuff. Meaning, with the older members, as time goes on, I'd be developping experts as well, who might learn more stuff that others would know. So I could then partner with them to create mini reports.

Anyway, I see potential in creating communities with the affiliate model that I have in mind. So I'll explore it a bit more. I also want to learn how to implement it myself, so I don't need to purchase the services of a programmer. So I'll go the easy route at first and build a list only, and then add the community function afterwards.

I've also determined what my first aff. site is going to be. Now I just need to make up my mind as to if I go ahead with the membership site first...or the affiliate site!

new walls are put up by the government

2009-07-02T16:21:00.000-07:00

Just reading up some of the news that's been going on in the affiliate marketing world with NC now putting a tax law for affiliate sales on companies. ( from what I understand at least ). Kinda makes you think about how fast a good thing can go. It's kinda making me wonder as well about the future of my business. BUT, I haven't started it yet, AND no news on such a law being created in canada yet. But still, it COULD come eventually. So better prepared than getting caught...I'll work on a plan as I go along....I'll most likely just convert from being an affiliate to selling products similar to what I promote though...physical AND information based. Too bad for those affected though....as well as the companies. If it comes to be that all the states adopt a similar law, it'll affect internet income throughout the world...Wonder why they don't get this fact....affiliates bring in a major part of online income, take them out, income in general goes down, and economy will still suffer...

Anyway...another thing I read today made me think...About how you need to be an expert if you create a product, on that specific subject. Now I know that you can hire people to create the products, but when it comes time for support...that doesn't work out to well...And that made me think of my product, the membership site. I'm not really an expert at my subject matter...So I'll need another angle if I want to continue in this niche...I was thinking of being the "reporter" the guy who reports things I see FROM the experts in all sorts of media. Being the guy who assembles content from all sorts of sources and brings them in one easily absorbed package. I just need to find a good way to communicate how this will benefit them, instead of going to the expert themselves for the advice...So I need them to think of me as the "go to guy". So I can still make the product...I just need to change the strategy behind it a bit...

Hell....maybe I could develop a whole back-end with my affiliate business idea by making products instead of finding products to promote...that'll be a lot more profitable for myself....and will counter any eventual plan from the government...

goal setting

2009-07-01T15:54:00.001-07:00

Alright, so to make thing easier on myself. I decided to set goals for myself. So that once I hit a goal, I move on to the next idea that I have. I've pretty much included all of the ways I plan on making money in this plan. Apart from a job...

This is what the plan includes:

- my membership site
- my affiliate business
- Stocks plan using dividend paying stocks
- Real estate renting
- real estate flipping

Those are the ways I plan on making money in my life at the moment. Of course...real estate is out of the question right now...The most likely ones are the business ones and the stocks one. So I'll be focusing on those.

I like especially like my new affiliate plan. As it kinda crosses with things that I have a passion for. I've decided on 11 niches that I want to tackle. Each one of those is either something I want to learn, or something I want to get rid of, or something I already love. Most of them are going to be review type sites at first. With me trying out a bunch of products out there and telling people about my experiences with the said products. I'm gonna aim for making 2000$ a month with each sites. I'll also be using lists with all of these to send multiple offers to them to make it easier to reach that 2000$/month level.

Anyway, now I'll go deeper into planning to determine my next steps with all of these.

cya!

some more stuff

2009-06-26T09:48:00.000-07:00

hey,

so a few new developments in the plan. Good developments. I've found a domaine name that's available. so that's good news.

I've also expanded my market a lot to include other interests, as well as focus in on a certain type of prospect. This so I can increase the number of offers that I'd be able to make to this market. As well as so I can increase the number of places I could advertise and find my target niche and be able to deliver a better sales message for all of them at once. I know it's good to do niche targeting, but this niche, even though it's very wide, topic wise, is very small prospect wise. So it's still a niche. But instead of targeting a niche subject, I target a niche customer.

figured out the mini course I was going to do, as well as free content I would deliver. Which is a big part of my marketing plan for the product. Since this is going to be a membership product, I want people to see up front what type of stuff they'll be getting from me. You know " if THIS is what he's offering for free, how AWESOME is his paid stuff going to be?! ". That's the feeling I want to aim for.

So for the free content, I've figured that I'll be providing a mini course, that I could charge for by itself. I'd also offer free databases of usefull content that they can start to use immediately, even without a paid subscription. Lastely, I'll be sending weekly emails with content.

For the weekly emails, since I plan to send a monthly newsletter, I'll basically send them a weekly update. The way I'm looking to do this is by simply providing 1 of the articles of the monthly paid product, and then include at the end of that article, a preview of the new stuff that's going to be added to the newsletter. So it'll serve 2 purposes. 1) give them extremely good value, since I'm giving them as much value as the paid members are getting. 2) I'll be putting these articles online, so they'll be available for distribution, as well as indexing and maybe a little advertising revenue.

Since my product is a membership site, I'm also trying to find things to build a community instead of just focusing on the product. I'm sure that doing this will raise the retention rate of subscribers, as they'll feel part of a group, instead of alone. That's the feeling I want to create, that they are in a group of people like them willing to help.

Of course, afiliate marketing is going to play a big role. I'm aiming for something really similar to what butterfly marketing was all about...had I known what my plan would eventually become, I would have most likely bought that dvd they were selling a while ago where it was dirt cheap...oh well. I can still manage on my own. Anyway, the basics of it is making the customers, your affiliates. It's the angle with which I'll have to present it to them that needs to be easy and simple to do so it doesn't discourage them into the whole process...

anyway, weekend time!

"PPC + CPA = GOLD!!! GET IN NOW!!!"

2009-06-23T07:24:00.001-07:00

so just a little something funny I noticed today while checking out forums on marketing. Still a lot of people doing article marketing...and marketers are all seeming to be pushing affiliate marketing down marketers throats these days from all the emails I get. It's PPC this, and CPA that.

From where I'm at, I can see the power of the true marketers using the "people are lazy" side of things to push buttons. The promise of "no products", "no list", etc.

I'm not falling for it...

I do see the potential for CPA, but I'll be using CPA within another business model that I thought of yesterday.

I was starting to think of making seperate pages for CPA campaigns and Clickbank campaigns, and then I realized that this wasn't really the best use of my money. The best use of my money as an affiliate marketer, would be through autoresponders and building a list. So I'll merge my strategies into centering my business around an autoresponder method. As far as affiliate marketing goes. Who knows...maybe I'll come up with products in those niches as well.

I'm going to be developing a sort of template way of doing things, for certain types of promotions. Like, I'll be doing something different to promote clickbank products, compared to promoting e-stores with several hundreds of items. or even CPA offers. I want a strategy for all of those, so it makes it pretty much a plug and play operation. Then all I'll need is content, and a way to produce it. I assume I'll be the one writing at first, but after a set milestone, I'll outsource the writing so I can become the publisher only.

Anyway, back to my original point, almost every afiliate marketer is still doing either article marketing ( if they're doing free marketing ) or PPC ( if doing paid...and mostly using google I assume...). I'm pretty sure the ones who have the most success are the ones who stay away from the hurd. So that's what I'm doing...The methods I'm looking to use offer the best possibility of expansion and aren't limited to PPC as far as paid marketing goes.

Anyway, lunch time, and I'm starving!

still building that strategy

2009-06-22T07:27:00.000-07:00

Yeah, so still building that financial strategy of mine. Came up with a couple more things over the weekend...and just this morning!

Ok, so I've been wanting to get into accounting for a bit now. And over the weekend, me and my father ( an accountant )started talking about it and various stuff. And it kinda got me interested in going for it. Becoming an accountant, and working at it for about 10 years, to be able to help me finance my different ventures.

Now concerning those ventures. I was driving along this morning, on my 2h30 long drive back from my hometown to where I live. And I was thinking of products and business stuff for my online business. Like what I could do and such.

I kinda put myself guidelines for what I wanted. Based on past experience on what held me back. Which was mostly price, and qualifications. Qualifications, meaning I didn't feel qualified to be selling what I was selling. I didn't feel like I would be able to satisfy the customer's more difficult questions if needed.

so I think I've come up with a concept that would bypass all of this stuff. It would also be monthly recurring income. It's in the same niche that I'm passionate about as well. Which is one of the things that I wanted for my business.

It's also very simple to publish. It's simply a newsletter. I don't think I'll be able to work on it much in the coming months because of lack of internet and computer access since I'm moving. So I'll mostly be doing planning and marketing material I bet until the time of release. Maybe write stuff for the products themselves as well.

then this morning I came up with another idea for something pretty simple. Concerning affiliate marketing, and all this CPA madness going on. I'm thinking of following the masses. Even though most people would say this is the wrong thing to do at the moment, since the market is most likely in a massive boom right now. But still, I'll try my hand at it. Since I'm pretty sure I can find a strategy of my own for these. And my aim for this side of business is 500$/day.

I still have to build the strategy into something more solid, but right now I'm liking what I have planned. Not looking to go too big, just looking to go!

slowly building a strategy

2009-06-17T17:50:00.000-07:00

Alright, well since my last post, I've been thinking hard about what my strategy should be financially. What my goals are, and what I can do with what I have right now.

I've determined that my plan should involve 2 steps:

1- working for money
2- money working for me

In step 1, I pretty much just put business. Which I know I want to be an online business. I just need to figure out what that business will be. I have some options that I'm looking at, but I want to figure out everything before hand.

the second step, I've included paper assets, and property.

Now, since property is still way out of my league, I've been looking at paper assets, and what I can do with the small amount I can save per month to start.

Here's what I've figured out...

I'm gonna start putting aside 10% of all the revenu that I get, as I get the amounts.

I'll then split that amount into 3 amounts.

1 amount, I'll put into a savings account, so it can earn interest. Gotta start saving up for those later years right?...

1 amount, I'll invest into dividend paying stocks. I'll do this every month so I can slowly gather a second regular income stream. I know it'll take time, but its better than nothing.

last amount, I still haven' decided yet. I want to invest it in a higher performing asset. Such as Options trading, forex, or penny stocks. So I'm basically researching these alternatives right now to decide which one is gonna be the right one for me.

Reading about options trading right now, next up I'll research forex a bit. Then penny stocks. My father's already investing in penny stocks ( although he lacks strategy...) and I've come up with a strategy for investing in them. I'd just need to know a little more about them, and how to know a good company from a bad one. Since penny stocks are different than other indexes and more prone to shady practices...

So that's where I'm at right now.

I've found that the savings account that would offer me the most interest for my money was ING direct, so I might open up an account soon. As for a trading account, I'm still researching, but I like ameritrade at the moment...along with etrade, and a new one I have to do more research about called buyandhold.com...

Anyway, time for some reading!

Still looking for my path...

2009-06-11T08:25:00.000-07:00

Yeah, so I'm still wrestling with this change of strategy. My videogame business idea was fantastic...BUT ran into some problems with the girlfriend about it ( long story...)

So I have all sorts of things in my head right now...I've always had some sort of goal to aim for, and right now I'm without a goal and it's messing me up...I feel kinda lost right now.

So looking for all sorts of strategies and things that I could start-up.

I'm looking at web business ideas, stocks, and "real" businesses mostly...since real estate is to high up for me at the moment. But it's in the future plans for sure.

Oh well, I'll find my path soon...

baby steps strategy

2009-05-24T13:29:00.001-07:00

Alright! Well it's been almost 2 months now. Anndd..I've been through ups and downs.

For the last 2 months, until last night basically, my aim had changed from doing marketing, to building a videogame business. Things were going right along too. But shit just went down and now I'm pretty much back at square one...or zero...

So, now I'm thinking marketing again. But for some reason my track of thought has changed a lot. It's like everything has gotten clearer from taking this step back.

I was just taking a shower, and I realized my mistakes, things I need to do to start off on the right foot. I've got the idea for my business model. I've got the idea of how I'll be implementing it...So I guess it's just a matter of researching it now...or just doing it...since the method I use now, pretty much automatically tells me if there's a market or not...

I'm going to start diversifying my strategy for wealth...starting at the bottom, and not looking to go big, fast.

I'll call this the "baby steps" strategy.

blah blah stuff stuff

2009-03-30T09:49:00.000-07:00

SOOOOoooo, got a little sidetracked again, just momentarily though. I had an idea for a membership site and I just wanted to brainstorm the marketing system I'd use for starters. And I like it! It also gave me some ideas for my first membership site. It was a fun little side-track. Which I'll get back to later on!

Yeah, I'm going to build a list first, but I'll also look for building a product as well. I'm thinking of a cheap membership product. The more I think about it, the more I realize that the bulk of the money in the industry is made from physical consumable products...So I might just head on in that direction afterwards! I mean, I already contacted a manufacturer once to get some ideas of the numbers, and it could totally be done.

Anyway, yeah, I'm going to build the offer for my first product. Then I'll follow this system for my following products.

Now I contacted my designer and he just doesn't seem to get what I want...I told him I'd like to use a certain program, but he suggests another one with features that I want, missing...I'll keep on negociating a bit to see what he offers as a price...

I just hope it's cheap...

new sh*t!! ( screw you google )

2009-03-26T10:46:00.000-07:00

Yo,

So I was just flipping through my old marketing notebook, and found old ideas I had committed to. So, I started thinking about exactly WHY didn't I use these strategies...? I mean...they were great! Everywhere I look, that's what people are doing and preaching.

My strategy was rather simple, use a squeeze page to take visitors into my funnel...then just supply great info, and offers via autoresponders...So when did it all get so complicated?

Then I got it...Google scared me...or at least, influenced me...

With everybody running scared of getting slapped by google, I guess I got caught up in this as well...Not wanting to create typical "squeeze pages" for fear of google not approving it and slapping you a 10$ cpc. Now...I've gotten new ideas, that would bring me more traffic than adwords ever could...and without getting penalized...So why am I not doing this simple strategy, instead of all this complicated mess about worrying about google? That's kinda like being controlled by a boss...So, I'm doing it...I'm taking google out of the equation for now. I'll concentrate my efforts on every other means of getting traffic that I know of instead.

Good luck to me!

review page building.

2009-03-23T18:00:00.000-07:00

okkkk SO...I've redesigned the template of my PPC Review pages Ive been developping. Now just need to fill it with content. I've made it so that it's a bit simpler to build. Which is good stuff. I've also figured out a couple of things that I wasn't to sure about. Like how I was going to include an opt-in in all of this. But now I've figured it out! Hopefully, it works like a charm.

I've designed the site with the idea in mind that it will give users a great experience. So that google, will also love it...Since this one is specifically designed for PPC, I have to design it with PPC traffic in mind. It's not a campaign I would do say, media buys, for...It's extremely targetted. Hopefully I can get a couple undred bucks out of this one page a month, and opt-ins.

I also just emailed my web designer dude to see about those membership site ideas. Hope to get that moving forward.

So now, I'll just keep on making those review pages for the niche that I'm targetting! Hoping for 1000$ a month from this niche...hopefully this it what comes true. From my research, I have competition...just from sites that don't know how to use PPC right and are basically just throwing money at it. Good for me!

Well, I'm off!

BEST REPORT EVER

2009-03-19T14:37:00.000-07:00

Alright so today, I read what was probably THE BEST REPORT on getting traffic I've ever read...it was exactly the stuff that I wanted to know about: Media buys. So now that I'm armed with the knowledge, I'm going to be doing research for it. To be able to include it in my marketing arsenal.

I've also thought of something today regarding my whole business. I'll just screw the "only have 4 sites" thing for now. I need income any way I can get it. So then I got to thinking about offers on affiliate networks and such. Then it dawned on me...

With the latest ideas that I had for my membership sites, I can also apply this to affiliate sites that wouldn't work as a membership based model. Then I got to thinking about different product types available online. And so I think I've pretty much discovered how to make a site on ANY niche. At least, and Affiliate site. So I could just look at an offer, and use it...

Because from all the training I've been doing, all the products I've been noticing have been telling people how to do product research, and it's pretty much all the same. So some time in the near future, it's bound to be that those products are over saturated with affiliates trying to sell them. With my idea though, that won't be such a problem.

Speaking of everybody teaching the same thing...that's another thing that made the report I read earlier so great...it wasn't the same old same old info that's oversaturating the market right now...about PPC and all that stuff. Don't get me wrong, it's a great way to get traffic, but I'm not putting all my eggs in one basket...So getting alternatives is a plus...and alternatives that will most likely give me greater rewards at that...

Anyway, just wanted to post about the excitement in my head right now just thinking that I've pretty much got a concept that I can rework into any niche that I please as far as affiliate marketing goes. As for selling products, well that'll be easy with a list from those sites...I 'll just ask what they want, and get it for them.

All for now, Cya!

Baby steps on Giant steps...?

2009-03-17T15:26:00.000-07:00

Sooooooooo, I've kinda developped myself a weekly schedule. So I can be a little more organized as to what it is I do on those days to take me forward a bit. Let's hope it works fine. hasn't until yet because I've got so much to do already after my work day is finished that it's pretty much time for me to go to bed when I'm done...I'll have to find some time, in some way...

I'm now also contemplating products to develop...I've been researching on alternatives for how to create a certain type of subscription based product and came upon a really good alternative. This is certainly a 100k/month idea which I haven't seen in the niche I'm targeting this product for. I have the same product idea for 3 other niches, with beaucoup potential as well...but I think a little less because of the marketing campaign I'm planning with the first one.

Now I'm kinda wondering to myself if it's worthwhile to put all my time on small projects, or just start off putting my time into these bigger projects, with alot more potential rewards...baby steps or giant steps...?

I've been down this road before, and it's lead me basically to where I am at right now...always thinking my new big idea is going to be THE one...But then run into a financial wall when it comes to producing the product...But with this type of product, I'd only have to create 4 of them to pretty much be set for life with a great monthly income ( it's membership based ).

So...I guess I'll contact the designer I always use and see if he can work with the idea that I have. He's usually cheap and does good work.

on with the show

knowledge sucking

2009-03-12T14:22:00.000-07:00

Alright, so I'm still in "knowledge sucking" mode. Getting all sorts of emails and getting all sorts of new ideas for marketing tactics. Even bought a small course today on scarcity and urgency tactics today. Alot of stuff I already knew, but a couple of gems. I'll surely use.

So tonight, hoping to advance on that money page and quite possibly look into my first product. I'm thinking of a small report. in the 10$ range for starters, about 20 pages long. Something I could develop into a full product later on. Just to get the ball rolling.

I'm also going to start building my idea for an opt-in. I wanted to do a fancy opt-in box at the top right...but I think I'm just going to add a banner at the top of the site that'll lead to a squeeze page. For now anyway...just so I have it in there. That or just take out the Adsense from the right side and replace it with an opt-in box...I'm not too sure what to put in as an incentive either, so I'll just highlight the content I'll deliver for now until I find something better...

baby steps still...until I can make money to reinvest...ughh....

darn money...

2009-03-11T08:02:00.000-07:00

aahhhhhh MAN!!

I've just gotten more ideas for products...but I have no money to excecute them!! I've got a full page of product ideas for my niche...and I've just gotten more to most likely start a second page...

Anyway, the first "money" page is almost done. I just need to finish adding in the content to the page and it should be good to put up online. After that, I'd like to setup the autoresponder. I've got the idea on how I want to integrate it with the whole site, and it's a pretty important part of it. Need to come up with an opt-in box that attracts the eye as well...I need to add it to the template.

so other than this, I've been researching CPA a little bit and I'm thinking of checking out networks to see if there are some good offers in my niche that I could tap into immediately for some cashflow.

Also started educating myself in the forex market. It seems really interesting, and you can start for cheap ( minimum 25$! ) granted, the returns are minimal at that level, but you just scale that up over time and re-invest your earnings, I'm sure that it'll compound nicely. So I'm going to be researching this a little further...I'm thinking of purchasing a small 20$ 8 day training on forex to get the basics of it. Then getting a software that I saw had potential for choosing trades, that I'll test ou using the demo software at first. If the trade selecting software doesn't work on the demo, then I'll just get a refund of the software.

Anyway, right now, I need money to excecute my ideas...so I'm thinking CPA is a good road to take...So I'll check on that, while I finish my first "money" page.

cya

Chugging along

2009-03-08T11:21:00.000-07:00

Hey there,

Well, working on building my first pages for the niche. It's going along smoothly right now. Just one problem now and it's money related...I don't have enough...that's pretty much it. So launching campaigns is going to be hard...

BUT, I've got other strategies in my head. I also figured out another strategy for product creation that might work really well. So I'll attempt to try that one out soon.

So yeah, I've noticed that most "super affiliates" or really successful people online work in multiple niches, so I've determined alot of niches that I would be interested in working in after this one. I'll still work this one to it's core before giving up on it. But maybe when I get some revenue going, I could outsource the content creation for the other niches. Now that would be awesome!

Oh well, time to get back to work so I can put my first campaign live this week.

awww not again....

2009-03-04T14:21:00.001-08:00

Alright, so I hit a little hurdle...I was doing the market research to see if my idea was a viable one. Turns out it's not AS GOOD idea as I had first pictured it. SO, I'm now trying to hit the market at another angle.

This one is a market I've done research on, and KNOW has potential. It's one of the biggest markets out there. But I just have to hit it right.

Stay tuned.

EDIT: Alright!! problem solved. Found a new way to hit the market. I also found a whole slew of other markets that I'd be interested in investigating further once I've developped this market to what I think is good enough.

2009-03-03T07:38:00.000-08:00

Hey there,

Well, still on that learning thing, but also applying the knowlegde as well.

I've decided alot of how the site is going to work. I've also determined my first 4 main avenues for traffic that I'll be using. Now I'm going to be looking to create a broad keyword list. I've already got an idea of how I want these layed out. Should be a huge list.

I'm going to build the affiliate side of my business at first to generate income. Products will come after when I have money to outsource.

Also noticed that most of what I end up doing in my marketing, is stuff that I later find people teaching in their courses...like in that ppc classroom...I found some ideas in there that was stuff that I had started doing by myself...So that's giving me confidence in my own abilities, and that I DO know what I'm doing as far as traffic generation goes. I just need to give myself a chance and go full on with this project.

hoping that I'll be able to launch the first section of my site this month.

Back and on FIRE!

2009-02-27T11:13:00.000-08:00

Well I feel like I have alot to talk about. Even though it's most likely not going to be taking that long...

So anyway, Maybe talking a little bit about what's jolted this sudden feeling inside me would help. So let's start with a little story!!

So I finally met with an investor from the region. Him and his wife. Nice couple, in fact, I'm supposed to be meeting them again tonight. They want to show me what they do that enables them to be able to invest in real estate now. I smell an MLM pitch but we'll see...Anyway, later that night I signed up for a webinar on real estate syndication. It sounded like something that could potentially help me. It turned out to be a crap webinar that was nothing more than a one hour sales pitch...

Next day, I decided to ask someone on a real estate message board that I knew did some type of syndication and he promptly responded that I should do 2-3 deals WITH MY OWN CASH before attempting to gather investors and using other people's money.

I don't know why, but hearing that made say: " alright, then I shall." And I'm forgetting about creative 100% financing for now...I'll wait till I have a bit of money to put into deals and making my own before jumping into real estate.

SO, now I'm working on my business! For a couple of days now I've been in deep "info gathering" mode. Checking all of those tons of emails that I've received over that past whatever months and taking the gems of knowledge in them and checking out offers for products that I feel a worthwhile.

I've learned about new techniques that gave me ideas, and I've bought that super-hyped "free" PPC Classroom 2.0 DVD that I'm sure everyone knows about by now. Hoping to learn new stuff at least in there.Can't beat the value for the price you know...

Anyway, I'm just looking to launch the business in a massive way. I have ideas for a whole load of stuff. From products to campaigns, all sorts of things. I'm trying to start as cheaply as possible though...So it'll take time. But oh well...

As of right now, the site getting more and more traffic from google. Good sign! Learned some new strategies to push the traffic even more. And I'll be implementing alot of new stuff as well.

I want to work less, and grow more, so I'm going to be delegating alot of stuff I just don't want to do. Like content stuff...Some of it, I'll do, but I'll most likely outsource it in some way.

So JR is back in the IM game to make some cash for real estate ( and a better life ).

need more hours

2009-02-18T06:27:00.001-08:00

Hey there!

Yeah, it's been a while. So let's recap what I've done in that time.

First, my marketing biz. Well, I've found someone I'm interested in working with, and I know what type of product I'd like him to make. So now I just need to write him an email and see if we can make a deal that'll suit us both. I just want a product out there so that I can start marketing. And after this one is out, I'll market the hell out of it until it brings me 5k a month or predictable income. Meaning I won't work on developing new products during that time.

During that time, I'd only be focused on marketing that product, AND working on putting more content on my content aff. site. I've been getting a slightly larger amount of people coming to the site from google...but still nothing to scream in joy for...my traffic is still EXTREMELY low. I've found new programs to promote as well which give me plenty of free articles that I can put on my site. So I WILL! I'm also thinking of emailing the affiliate manager of one of the bigger aff. programs that I'm in. I'd like to get feedback and ideas as to what I could do. I want to increase my network a bit.

Now for real estate. I had a meeting with an agent last week, and he was very helpfull in clearing all sorts of things that were kind of a blur in my head about the whole purchasing process. Although he did talk to me as if I didn't know anything AT ALL about real estate. I understood then that I knew alot more about it than I thought. So now I'm trying to just learn a bit more about specific processes. Like making offers, and such. I want to know what I'm doing. I'm also talking and trying to meet fellow investors who can maybe help me out a bit.

Also going to be building my business plans for my real estate biz. Yeah, plans...with an "s". Because I've got 2 ideas for real estate. Based on 2 strategies. A "hold" strategy and a "flip" strategy. Steady income is nice and all, but large deposits in your bank account are also nice. So I found 2 strategies that will work for both, and I'll develop businesses around these ideas.

Lastly...I've been pondering a videogame business for a while now. I've got an idea for a game. So I'm going to begin writing down a design document for it. It may not come to being for a couple of years still. But I'd like to have it as a possibility.

So there you have it. That's what I've been up to since last post. I'm also extremely busy in other areas in my life right now, so I'm PACKED with stuff to so. If I could wish to change one thing though right now...it'd be more hours in a day...

still researching

2009-02-01T10:06:00.000-08:00

Hello there!

Well, I've been still doing more research on all parts of the plan. Yes STILL...

For real estate, I'm trying to know what the steps are BEFORE even trying to make an offer, so that brokers will even give me the time of day. So the areas I'm concentrating on at the moment, are getting pre-approved for loans and downpayments, building relationships with brokers and learning about the process. And also researching communities. I've found plenty of hard money lenders, but I need to know how I could use them in my plans. They'd be the easiest route to take as far as financing goes for my situation, although more expensive. So still going to be researching and asking around for strategies.

And for my website, well I've been gathering around a list of people that I'd be interested in working with that I'll be contacting. I have ideas for products that I'd like to do with some of the people I found. So I have info product ideas, as always...now to have them built...

as for the current site. Well, I'm going to also ask these experts for the cost of having them write articles of course. But I also got an email about a new service for writers this week which intrigued me...for 11$ an article. So maybe I'll use them for more generic articles that don't require much knowledge and can be found doing research anywhere.

Anyway, I've found a bunch of articles that I can put online now from affiliate programs that I promote, so I'll put those on there for now.

I give up...

2009-01-26T09:31:00.000-08:00

Nah not really...

But I am going to be changing some stuff on how I'm going to proceed...because I ain't going nowhere the way I'm going right now...

So I'm going to contact a bunch of experts and ask them if they'd want to contribute on my site and write articles and what it would take for them to be willing to do this! I'll stick to writing the newsletter...

This also got me thinking about my products. I'll just have these very experts create products for me as well! I'll be able to have alot more products withthe idea that I have planned. Also, since most of the article writers in the industry are also consultants ( or sorts ), I'm going to ask if they'd be willing to offer me a refferal fee for any new clients I bring to them.

The focus of the site is changing a little bit. Because of the need to differentiate myself. So I'm going to provide a sort of meeting place, where customers and consultants can meet. And where consultants can sell some stuff as well and market themselves. So I'll provide something on both end of the industry. And I'll just collect part of the revenues generated in those transactions. Hopefully this works...I'll be starting to contact people tonight I think, or at least make a list of people to contact. And this time I'm going to be calling to show I'm serious...

First though...I think I'll add a couple of articles from affiliate programs that I promote. Just to get some stuff on the site.

As for real estate...well I'm still reading, and I'm checking for deals...but damn...deals are hard to come by...you know, ones that give you a good monthly cashflow...those mortgages eat all the profits up...But I'll find something someday I guess...Just gotta keep looking!

not proud...didn't move forward at all...

2009-01-22T14:11:00.000-08:00

Yeah...like the title says, I haven't moved forward at all with the website. I guess it's all the article writing right now. I just don't have that much time for it. Every time I tell to myself that I'm going to do something, I end up having to do something else...If only that job wasn't there...

Anyway, that's that on the website progress...now onto something that I HAVE been moving forward in, sorta...

I've been revisiting real estate alot these past days. I'm rereading my books and writing down key points so that I can then devise a plan.

I think I've found my solution for my biggest problem, being lack of funds of course...I'll explore that a little more. In the meantime I'll continue reading, and making my plan, then I'll make a business plan to recruit investors & show lenders that I'm professional.

Also found an interesting site where they sell websites. I was checking the prices and I wanted to hit myself for just stopping my old website that was generating 200-500 a month...I could have most likely sold that for a couple of grands...*sigh*...

Anyway, I gotta keep on moving forward...someday I'll be where I wanna be...oh man....it's been 5 years since I've started this blog...financial freedom sure is coming alot later that I first expected hehe

more product ideas, and newsletter idea!

2009-01-13T05:17:00.000-08:00

Well, I'm a year older now, 26...time is going by, it's soon going to be time for me to settle and start myself a little family! So I better start making me some mulla!

Not really any significant updates yet appart from getting traffic from google. I haven't had that much time to work on the site itself. But I'm going to put a little work in tonight. I just wanted to update and tell you guys that I've found stuff to add to the site.

Like about 5 different products that would be lower-priced. Also going to develop several other "programs" which are monthly programs for a predeterminded set of time. So that should add diversity to the site and seperate myself a bit from competitors.

The other thing I just recently decided upon was my newsletter and what I would deliver of value! Well, I decided that I would simply give out nuggets of information. I'd like to aim for a daily tips newsletter, but that would be pretty hard to do...But I at least know where to get the information from. So it would pretty much be a never-ending source of info.

Anyway, I'll get to work on some stuff tonight. I also have to convince myself on purchasing that membership software, and also, those other products and how they'll operate. Because THOSE products don't need the membership software and could almost be created immediately...hmmmm...More stuff to look at I guess!

first traffic from search engine

2009-01-07T15:56:00.000-08:00

hey there!

Alright, well, I've gotten my very first search engine traffic, from msn. So that's kinda cool. Now I just need to keep on doing it! But it's been hard these last few days with work...I've been having to work late since monday...so I haven't been able to write any articles for the site...And the next articles are for the pay site too to boot.

I haven't bought the membership software yet, still waiting for a little extra dough.

Meanwhile, I'm just tryiong to come up with some ideas for free traffic generating techniques that I could use. I don't want to hop into paid methods before having a product available... One has already been set up. I'd like to get something like a viral video...but I gotta think of something first....

I'm finding the site is looking a little empty...I need more images. So that's something I might invest in soon.

Apart from that, I'm just thinking and educating myself on the stock market and real estate. Like how I could get started. I've gotten good ideas for real estate.

I'm thinking about building a business in real estate. So I'm thinking of what type of business plan I could make, and also what kind of improvements I could bring to buildings. And what kind of markets I want to deal with. The money question still being the biggest...One day...

Oh well, till next time!

week of sh*t load of work, end

2009-01-04T07:44:00.000-08:00

Well, in the end, I only did part of what I wanted because I ended up partying over new years haha and I had lots of things to do the last few days because my girlfriend just arrived from europe and she's onow living with me! So that was a big move.

But I've got my first traffic coming my way, I've put up my first article for distribution. So now I'm just concentrating on doing the little things that will keep the site growing bigger and bigger.

I've figured out what type of articles I'll be delivering for distribution so that's a plus.

I'm going to have to use wordtracker some time though to build me a list again sinec aI lost my previous one from that darn computer crash...So I think I might be going either the text link route or paid advertisement route at first as far as marketing goes.

Also have to put up my newsletter. I have all the templates odesigned and ready to copy paste.

Now I'm off to start writing my next article!

Cya!

week of sh*t load of work, day 4

2008-12-30T13:26:00.000-08:00

Yeah, skipped a day yesterday...kinda forgot...oh well...

The site is live!! Just finished loading and testing to see if everything worked and it does! So now I'm going to be trying to at least write 1 article every 1-2 days. While I work on making content for the upgrade site as well.

Oh yeah, and traffic. Kinda need that too. I've started my battle plan, now it just needs some doing and a little more polishing up. So I'll do what I can do right now, and polish what needs to be polished before being able to execute it.

So that's that!! mission complete for launching the site. Now step 2 of building the product and getting traffic gets under way!

week of sh*t load of work, day 2

2008-12-28T14:17:00.000-08:00

Alrighty, well, today I checked a couple of things, and made a little list of what was the minimum requirements for putting the site live.

I've figured out the membership software I was going to use was amember already, so that's 179$ right there. May wait till next paycheck to purchase that. Which is next week.

I've made sure that all of my affiliates accounts were still active and got coding for the links I'll need when I start off. Also did the php coding to cloak the links. Then setup the index page to be ready for content.

I pretty much only have one thing to do now, and that's add content!!

So that's the task at hand for the rest of the week I guess...

Oh yeah, I also checked my stats for the site just for fun. Found out that I had already put a version of the site online. Which is nice haha. It hasn't generated any money. And has only gotten visits from bots. But the fact that it's getting visited by bots already is a good thing for me starting off. But I ain't too worried about that, I can get the attention of search engine traffic quite easily.

So what's left on the list of things to do for the site to go live:

- build content
- get amember and setup member section.

Oh yeah, also sent a message to clickbank asking if it was possible to have recurring yearly affiliate commissions. You know, as an extra incentive for affiliates to promote my site. Hmm...I'll most likely have to think of a strategy for my affiliate program as well...

Well!! I'm off to work on content!!

Cya tomorrow for an update on how the week's going!!

week of sh*t load of work, day 1

2008-12-27T14:11:00.000-08:00

hello there!

Well, the week of partying is done. Now comes the week of work on the business...at least that's what's I have planned...

I've finished the second part of the salesletter for product #1 for when the product isn't finished yet. I don't think it's quite finished though...needs fine tuning. So what I figured I'd do in the meantime, just to put the site live and all, is just send people to an affiliate link instead. Hey, maybe it'll generate some sales...

I've just started working on the site about...30 minutes ago. I'm prepping the site to be put live. Right now it's a bunch of lorem ipsum ( or whatever ) so can't have that when the site goes live now can we...

So just figuring some stuff out with that.

After that, I'll most likely have to create myself a marketing plan to know what the hell I'll be doing as far as business activities go. Just to start getting a system up and going.

What I know, is that I want affiliate traffic asap. I don't have the money to buy loads of traffic so...free would be the way to go, and affiliates are the best source of this free traffic in my opinion.

And the fastest way that I could get THAT, is by making my first product, the membership upgrade thing. I don't know if I even talked about it on this blog...Anyway, it's basically a membership site, like an extension of my main site. But it'll have info that people will need or want to learn to be able to accomplish goals.

Alot of my articles on my main site will be teasers where it'll say that they need to be a member to see the rest of the articles.

I'm thinking this way, I give tremendous value up front by giving them loads of free content that isn't all crap. Because alot of the articles are going to be complete as well, because of my affiliate strategy...which I'll explain after.

I'm thinking of making this membership a per year thing, like 67$ a year. Not sure yet...I'll test it. But since it'll be an ever expanding project, I think it makes sense. Can't go too high in this industry. but can't make it too low for the affiliates to be interested...

Oh yeah, for that affiliate strategy, I'm going to be putting lots of full articles because most articles will have some mention of a product that I could send customers to. So if I want to make the most out of my site. I'm going to be putting lots of full articles that have the possibilities to sell stuff. Not all of them...but alot hehe.

So yeah, that's pretty much what I'm up to right now.

Hopefully, this week the site will be live and kicking, the membership portion of the site will on and marketing will have started!

baby steps to success

salesletter part 1 finished

2008-12-11T16:52:00.001-08:00

Hey there, just updating a little bit.

I've just finished the salesletter for the squeeze page for my opt-ins. I came up with a pretty good strategy for gathering a big list. And I'm liking my strategy. Gives alot of value up front to give people confidence in what my product will give them. You know, "if I give them so much for free, how good must the product be?!!"

I actually liked doing this salesletter. Fun stuff...

Oh yeah, I'm sending those people directly oto a salesletter ofor a product that isn't done yet...but what I'll do, is I'll just put up a sign-up form on that page ofor people who're interested in being told when the product will be launched. So I'll have a list of potential buyers. It'll be a list of people who're more interested in the product I have, than the first list I gather up.

Also...I thought of another strategy...I was planning on only selling this product on a monthly payment basis, for 12 months. Like 10$...but then aI checked out a site and they offered the monthly installements OR the one payment choice...So What I'll do...is I'm thinking of also putting the choice of either the monthly 10$ product ( which would amount to 120$) that gives you updates from month to month for a year. OR get everything now, for a lower price. Like 67$...I'll ive the monthly subescribers something extra since they're paying more in the end, but if I can get others to get the one time deal, I'll be happy...1000 customers a year would already be 67 000k.

Oh yeah, and I'm doing this for 2 products. I'm shooting for 3 products by year end. I'll make 2 similar products at first. Then I'll make the membership site. Which I'll price at 10$ a month as well I think...I'll see...maybe more since there'll be more stuff...I dunno yet, still being planned out...

But it's exciting :)

I'm going to most likely work quite a bit during the christmas vacation on this project since I'm going to be alone without my girlfriend until the 3rd of january.

Well, I'm off to work some more!
cya!

still here.

2008-12-07T10:12:00.000-08:00

Hey there!

Well, I'm still here. My computer was in the shop for the last week...so I did most of my work on paper...which is more fun than I thought. I came up with good ideas. I'm working out the sales process for products to try and make people buy the products. And how the entire funnel will work, like opt-ins and such.

I'm pretty satisfied with my strategy up until now. But I'm going to check other salesletters to see if I can't generate some other ideas to raise conversions up to a good level before putting it out.

The first product has all been planned out. And the second one is still having the kinks being worked out. But the goal this year is to at least have the main website up and generating aff & ad money, and having those 2 products out there. Today, working on the sales process and maybe figuring out how to optimize my opt-in strategy...

Anyway, cya!

Feeling good

2008-11-24T15:03:00.000-08:00

Hello there!

Well, I'm feeling really good today. Well right now anyway...

I worked on my business yesterday. I've found a good way of getting content, as well as an idea for a membership site. Which is sort of an upgrade from the normal site. So they get tremendous value from the free stuff, but even more value from the paid stuff.

I'll make it maybe...47$ a year at first and then jack up the price when more stuff gets put in...maybe...but hell...1000 subscribers a year would be nice from this thing...not counting all the other stuff I'm planning. But I just came up with this while researching for articles. It was a good idea.

Actually doing something felt good. I even put my first article into html. But the site still needs a few things before going live. It needs 2 salesletters for the newsletters. Those are the biggies. I need to have those done and find something enticing so people want to subscribe...Oh well, I'll figure something out in time.

Lots of thinking

2008-11-20T17:32:00.000-08:00

Yeah, I've been lots of thinking about the site. And just for fun, I decided to make a list of all the possible income sources. But this time, based on what I know that my competitors are doing. And I've found alot of things that I could do to make money. Alot of sources that my competitors aren't even looking into.

I've made a big list of all of the income possibilities that are possible for me right now. I have renewed hope for the opportunities in this business. I may not make millions out of it though, but still, I'll make enough to be able to pursue other dreams and gain freedom.

But the biggest problem that I've always face lies ahead of me. And that's the content creation aspect of thing. Right now, I have the resources that I want as to where I'm going to get the info for my articles. But I just don't want to write articles, because I don't think it's the most productive use of my time personally...and I just hate it...So I'm thinking of using that writer I've used before again for this project. Hopefully, she'll agree. After this, all I'll have to do is create products, and create marketing campaigns. Which is what I like most about this.

So I'm going to continue writing down my new plan. I first need to know how much this whole thing will cost me on a monthly basis. And I need to predict how soon it will be before I make a return on the money I invest. I'm thinking I'm most likely going to need to invest around 150$ a month for this at first...50$ for articles,. 50$ for marketing & 50$ for 1shoppingcart software. I guess I need to start getting products built to take advantage of affiliate traffic asap.

Things slowly starting to make sense...It's like a system is being built. Something I can finally see working. Something that makes sense in my head, and also, because I've seen my competition do it. But leaving so much more on the table. Which is where I come in to grab that slice of the pie.

Not living to full potential

2008-11-16T08:31:00.001-08:00

Alright, so the website's finished. Now comes the time for me to put some effort into it.

I just feel weird lately...my girlfriend being in Switzerland and all. You know, I get the feeling that I'm not living my life to it's full potential...I know so much about investing, and business. Yet I haven't got anything to show for it. Things need to change. I need to setup habits to make me go forward. Like setting an hour aside everyday to work on my business. Just something to make me want to get into that again.

I'll get back to real estate after I have a clear routine established and that my business is moving forward.

Not a lot more than that today, I'll be trying to work on the site and set it up so it's ready for content to be put up on it.

So what's up with lil 'ol me?

2008-11-11T15:12:00.000-08:00

Well...not much really...

I got me a new job in the field that I love working in, and my girlfriend is in Switzerland right now until the end of the year...Those are the major events right now...As for real estate and the business well...

Real estate has become pretty much non-existent in my head since I spoke with the mortgage broker...because the idea was again put into my head that I needed the money up front...BUT, other only way that I can figure out that I'd be able to get financing from partners, would be through private lenders...who would most likely want a good return on their money. Hence, meaning, most likely want to sell for big bucks instead of cash flow...but anyway, I might have to rethink things, because I'd now have to take selling the property in around 10 years into consideration and how that would fit into my whole scheme of things.

And the business? Well, the website is built, designer just needs to bundle it up together and send it to me. So as it's looking right now, I'm aiming for the site to play more of an "adviser" role into the industry. I'm planning to make it more of an affiliate website more than anything oat the moment. And maybe with time, add info products to it, and physical products as time allows. I'm just going to have to figure out a strategy for this site to be able to use more avenues of marketing possible without wasting my money just sending people to a home page of an article site. So I'm most likely going to be creating specific pages on those sites aimed towards specific keywords, for "review" purposes with no mention of my main site or links to the main site. They'll only have the option to go to my main site once I mention it inside an auto responder.

So yeah...think I might just work on this stuff right now...because I'm just lost right now and in kind of a rut that I need to get myself out of.

journey goes on

2008-10-16T11:15:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm still researching and jumping over walls.

For real estate, the mortgage broker I was planning on working with, well, he needs 5% down. I think that's a great amount though. I was thinking 10% down was what I would hear, but nop. And he seems to be an honest guy too. So I'm still interested in working with him in the futur. But I'll most likely be modifying my strategy a bit.

Now for the business...this is getting tricky. I'm going back and forth here. Thinking of easy/cheap start-up ideas that I could use. I've thought of all kinds of things. But they all seem to have a big flaw that would prevent them from working. The original idea would work great though...but that would cost me too much right now...So I'm thinking of building a content site first. And focus on being an affiliate for 2 categories of products. And I'll develop my product afterwards. I need to get back to making some money online fast...

I signed up to CJ.com for 2 of the big affiliates I want to use. But I'll find additional things in time, I'm sure.

So I'll contact my original web designer for a 300$ website design and hop on into it. I have 2 continuity ideas in my head right now, but I need more product ideas.

the journey goes on ...

walls are hit, again and again

2008-10-08T15:07:00.000-07:00

yeah, just read something in a book about the road to wealth being covered with walls you'll need to climb to succeed. Is that ever true...

for real estate, the wall has been that things don't seem that they'll be going as smoothly as I was starting to think. The mortgage broker is indeed willing to help me out. But instead of going right into the big deals, I might have to start with the 4 units and less deals. And then move on up. So I'm going to have to rewrite my game plan a bit. So I'm not out of the game ( oh HELL no! ), I'm just adapting to it. But right now, I'm going to do a step that might push me forward a bit. I'm going to make a list of lenders that I could most likely do business with. I got me a book with almost 1000 of them. So that will come in handy.

Another wall for my business is the start-up costs...the designer came up with 2800$ dollars for the site...still 2000$ more than I was really expecting...Now, I've contacted my original designer and he seems interested, now I'm just awaiting his response. But right now I was just thinking of what would be the cheaper route to take for my business. I really have 3 main ideas for my business. One being the membership site, one being something that I'd have manufactured. It's around the same area, but it's a consumable product. Still to pricey though, so I'm now pondering my 3rd idea, the one I was saving for last...but the one which might be cheapest to start off with. It's actually a drop-shipping biz. A membership to worldwide brands is pretty much all that is needed to find suppliers, then shopping cart softwares are everywhere, I'd just need a simple template done for the site, and voila...at least that's what I'm thinking, but I'ev JUST gotten this idea, so I haven't researched it one bit :P But doing this, there's also another thing that I could spawn off as a sideline business with monthly recurring potential...hmmm have to look more into this...RIGHT NOW!

cya! :P

anticipation building

2008-10-05T15:41:00.000-07:00

Alright, well I'm still moving forward and looking at all sorts of deals and contacting people to help me build a network of people I can rely on.

Now for the business aspect of my journey, the businesses I inquired about in my last post turned out to not be as good as I expected. So didn't pursue them any further.

As for my own business. Things are moving forward as well, I've submitted the new proposal and the designer is just reviewing it to tell me the new price and timeline. It's been a few days though...so today I also wrote an email to the designer who did a design for me a couple years back and asked him if he'd be interested in the project. Better to have options openned, right?

Now for the real estate thing, this is really starting to move places. I've been speaking with a commercial mortgage broker who seems to be on the same page as me as of right now, last email I sent him will pretty much determine if I'll be able to use his services. And I hope so, because if I can do what I want, I already have 4 multi-units in sight. One being a 217 unit "package deal" situated in a prime spot near the provinces capital as well the provinces main army base. After all expenses, I'm sure I could expect a minimum of 5000$ a month when being EXTRA conservative. I'm factoring in a huge expense budget though. Because after mortage payment, this property should be generating around 90k a month... Anyway, this is dream talk right now, nothing done yet as to the real estate investing yet. But I have big things in sight which I'll hopefully be able to accomplish.

Till next time!

Moving forward little by little.

2008-09-24T10:54:00.001-07:00

Hey there!

Well, computer is still in the shop...it WAS ok..for 2 days...then i caught the same virus...but hey, at least now I know for sure how I caught it right?...Anyway!

I've been busy this week reading about real estate financing and searching for sites about buying businesses and real estate. My mind is going crazy.

Now what have I done today that was productive. Well, I've emailed that website designer telling him about changes I wanted made to the plan. See, I got an idea on how to reduce the price a little. Because I realized that what was pushing the price upwards was most likely all the little special faetures that I wanted put in. Like a CMS and stuff like that. So I decided that i wanted that stuff out and instead just have basic html templates. Since I can change the templates myself. Only thing I need that's a little more advanced is like 3-4 PHP coding stuff. So I still need that. So I'm hoping this will reduce the price to around 1000$...If not, I'll go and contact the guy who made my first site to see if he can make me a good price.

Ok, what else...oh yeah, I've contacted a bunch of people about properties. And I've also inquired about 2 web businesses for sale. One being about fitness. Which is the industry I'm looking to dive into. The second one being 2 clickbank websites. which generate about 15k each per month. So good stuff.

Looking at opportunities more and more now. Finding things that will stimulate my thought process and try to find opportunities as well as future goals to aim for.

I'm feeling good these days. I'm feeling like I'm growing inside. That I'm moving forward finally. It's a good feeling.

lots of opportunities!

2008-09-17T09:55:00.000-07:00

Here's another update, since it's been a little while. Right now, My computer is in for repairs...it caught what is supposedly a "super virus". But oh well...things like this happen...

But now onto the venture. I've been really busy this week and open for opportunities.

Let's see. First off, the business. I've gotten the numbers from the developper, and it comes up to 3850$ for the membership site. Yikes!! Was my first reaction...But he's aggreed to do 4 install mayments of 20% ( It should be 25% I'm assuming...or else it's 5 payments of 20%...) 5 payments of 20% would make around 770$ I think. Still pricey...I was a little down when I got the quote. BUT, I won't let that get me down. There's got to be a way to get some money! So, I've decided to create a business plan again. One asking for a 3850$ loan hehe. I've been working on this all morning. This will pretty much be the focus of my week I think. I've also got some ideas out of doing the business plan. For expansion possibilities. Good Stuff.

Now, what ELSE have I been looking into? Well, one of them was an online business for sale. They're asking 100K$ If I rmember correctly...It's a car exhaust website. It generates about 2000-4000$ in net profits per month. Not bad, but I'm weary about the future of that industry. Plus, they only catered to a certain brand of exhaust. So that limited a little my expansion possibilities. So decided to let that deal go.

Another I've spotted was another business for sale. This one is a water bottle company. Selling for 500+K$. Which at the top of it's game, makes 2000$ a day. it had some pictures of the establishment...2 tractor trailers...I'd like to lean more about this busienss. But mostly about how he's able to generate 2000$ a day with this business when I remember that my ex-girlfriend used to buy bottles like this for 1$. So there's plenty of questions to be asked for this venture. So I might just go ahead and ask, just for fun.

Last but not least, is 2, 15 unit appartment buildings located just 2 minutes from where I live. It's a hot area. Asking price is 1 860 000$ but the rent and income level is high. Plus, it's right in front of a community college. So renting should not be a trouble at all. I'm thinking of calling this guy to see if he'd be interested in a little creative financing. I'd be willing to give him a higher price if he'd be willing to pay the downpayment for it...I wonder if he'll be interested in such a deal...

Oh yeah, that interview Ihad went extremely well, and it might translate to an extra 270$ a week to the old bank account. Which will make investing a whole hell of a lot easier.

Anyway, now I'm just waiting for my computer to be fixed so that I can move forward still!

progress report

2008-09-08T19:47:00.000-07:00

ok, so what's up with the whole venture?

Well, I've been in negotiations with a programmer for a couple of days now, just making the whole concept come to life. I've heard from both the people for the images and videos. But not as far into negotiations.

Things are looking good.

I was reading a book on direct marketing. And while reading this, I got confirmation that a lot of the tactics I'm planning to use are superb tactics that utilize the right emotions. So I'm heading towards the right track for having a great product.

I've also been writing down the basic plans on how I was going to go about doing certain things. Like allocating money and all that stuff. Exciting stuff indeed.

I've also got an interview for a possible new job on Wednesday.

Things are looking up right now. But everytime they do, something happens to bring me right back down...let's hope that doesn't happen too soon.

And I'm off!!

2008-09-04T08:29:00.001-07:00

alright, so I'm off!

I've just sent emails to people to have some ideas on costs. I've sent inquiries on images as well as videos. They look like they do quality work. Found the photographer on istockphoto and the video producer on elance. Now all I need is to find a decent programmer to do the work I want.

I'm trying to find people who can do the work, but without posting ads in elance. I'm just browsing through the providers and selecting the ones I think could do a good job. then I contact them.

I'm also thinking of using Amember pro for the membership aspect of it. I also found out that there's a 2 tier affiliate program that comes with the software...but I'd much rather have clickbank take care of writing all the checks right now and doing all that work. Because I'm going to get lots of affiliates fast if my plan works out.

So after I find my providers, I'll start to develop my marketing strategy. But FIRST...I gotta go wash myself!! Cya!

FINALLY - I have internet!

2008-09-03T10:38:00.000-07:00

now this is what I'm talking about!!

FINALLY have internet access, and finally in my own place. No need to move in the near future again! Sweet indeed.

So now I can put more effort towards my venture.

What I'll be doing is planning the product. What I want from it and all that so that I can submit a plan to a programmer and whomever else I need for this project.

Then I'll plan the marketing aspect of it.

Time to figure out how much this project could end up costing.

oh how I miss the internet...

2008-09-01T12:19:00.000-07:00

hey there, thought I'd give a little update. I'm at my fathers place right now, should be getting the internet this week in my appartment, which I'm moving in tomorrow if all goes well.

Anyway, just a little development about the product. I've changed it...yes, yet again. In all of my researching to try and find a USP for my ebook, I just couldn't find one. SO, I decided that I was going to go with the membership site first, but instead of making it a yearly subscription, it was going to be monthly.

I've come up with what I consider to be the most brilliant marketing strategy I've ever come up with. I utilizes affiliate marketing to it's fullest potential. And it will grow my client base with minimal marketing costs as time goes on. I've added a key element to give me a very unique selling proposition as to why people should choose me over my competition. It's not really a hard thing to do, but it's not being done. So I'm going to research about how I'd be able to do all of my plans this coming month. I'll save up a little bit of money, and hire people to do the jobs I need done for the membership site.

This has lots of potential. I better not screw this one up like all the others...I'm going to take my time in the developement stage to create extremely good value in my product as well as decent marketing ( that I'll improve with time of course ). This is a potential million dollar project if done correctly.

I'll also keep it a secret from everybody, except my dad ( he already knows ). If it succeeds, I'll let everybody know by buying myself a corvette haha.

Anyway, that's it for the heads up, I'll be posting more frequently from this week on since I'll have the internet again. Oh how I've missed it...

maybe last post until next month

2008-08-17T10:23:00.000-07:00

Hiya!

Well, I'm a little bit more positive right now than I was during my last post. I was at a pretty low point right there. Everything's been so chaotic around me lately...it'll be like this for about another month or so. I have to go through the storm...

Anyway, I've got a new place to stay at for 2 weeks until the appartment is ready in sept. and I'll have a lot of free time. So I'm thinking of bringing my computer over without an internet connection, and just concentrating on creating my product for 2 weeks in my free time. So when I do get the internet, the product will be ready.

I'm also thinking of strategies for marketing. I'm thinking of aiming towards aff.marketing as one of my core strategies right now. I'll be making the best use of this strategy and give affiliates a lot of content to help promote my products. I'll start by using Clickbank for how easy it is to start off. Then when I have enough income, I'll upgrade my 1shoppingcart account to include affiliate tracking so that I can create even more motivation from my affiliates.

It's kinda like how you need to find your USP for your business. I'll be doing the same thing with my affiliate program. To make affiliates want to chose my aff.program instead of others.

I'll also work on conversion closely. So the info products that I purchase in the future will most likely be about this very subject.

I guess this might be my last post for the next couple of weeks...or maybe in the next month...hope enormous progress is made during that time.

Cya!

No money = stress

2008-08-16T10:17:00.000-07:00

So that business idea that I had fell down the crapper. But oh well. But I have so much stuff going on right now that I can't even focus on one thing...So many things have happened in a month...

But anyway, I've had SOME time to think about my business. Like refining the product idea, and such. I've come up with something that went along the lines of what it is that I wanted to accomplish with my products. I even calculated an approximation of what it would cost to develop...but that came to around 2500$...so I ain't going to be investing that kind of money on something that I'm not even sure people want yet...So what I'll be doing instead, is do what Eben Pagan does and offer an introductory product to get them into the funnel. I'm going to offer a smaller product, that still delivers value to get them. This will cost me a lot less to create, give me the money I need to create the second product, and give me the customers that I need to survey them for future stuff.

Anyway, I still have 2 hectic weeks to go before I can even have a computer back...because right now I'm at my mothers typing this on my computer, but I'm going to be moving come monday, but only for 2 weeks, then I move into an appartment for good...so until that time, I can't do much except planning...

What I've REALLY seen though, is just how much, money can bring stress into my life...not having it I mean...it's like a wall that prevents me from moving forward with my goals in life...I remember at the beginning of the year, I told my girlfriend that I would be hitting the 60 000$ mark by the end of the year...she makes jokes about it now. I seriously doubt that I have a chance of making that much now from where I'm starting...but hell...if I can only make 1000$ a month extra by 2009, I'll be happy.

new idea for extra business

2008-07-31T10:49:00.000-07:00

Since the site might take a while to pick up, I'm trying to think up of every kind of opportunity for myself to make money. I need to now since I'm moving out on my own. And I've just gotten a great idea for a business. It's a business to business type of venture. A marketing business for a specific type of business that could help these types of businesses increase their sales. And since it's businesses, they'd be more willing to shed the money if they see my services as something that will increase their sales. And I've checked around and I've never seen this done in that industry yet. SO, I'm going to try and get first mover advantage on it, build a business plan, and present it to organizations around the area that might be able to get me some financing. Which shouldn't be too hard, because it's not a costly business to start, in fact, it's online. My area of expertise.

Other than that, I'm going to be researching all sorts of things that I want to get into to increase my assets.

But now I need to continue calling for appartments for my visit tomorrow...But this idea has got me excited indeed...

Site coded time for another round!

2008-07-27T11:15:00.000-07:00

Site has been coded, so it's ready to have content put into it. I've also set up the Adsense and everything into it. I've got the source of inspiration for the articles I'll write, and I've also gotten a good idea for a product to develop where I don't even need to look like an expert in the field, and it will be usefull for everybody who purchases it. Which is the thing that I've been wanting to achieve for so long. Finding something that people will find value in.

Simply building an info product wasn't going to cut it in this industry because of all of the big players already in it. So I need to really differentiate myself. So I decided to copy a technique from one of the big guys and I think it should work well. The technique simply being to offer loads of free information, and then offering products to further help them achieve their goals. So my product is something that will help them achieve their goals. I'll be charging 37$ a year for the service. It'll be a membership/software site. So repeat business is possible if the clients really enjoy the product and service. And for that, I'm going to really need to build a good relationship with my clients. And I'll do that by being something of a "advisor". Which John Reese mentionned a think a long while ago about a new way to get into the marketing niche. Well, I'll use this technique to get into my own niche. Since I know a lot about the subject.

So yeah, I'm heading back into the affiliate marketing game for a while before building my product. I've checked out my competition, and I think they're definitely beatable...especially with superior marketing abilities...not to boast or anything...because let's face it...if I was SO good...I wouldn't be where I am financially.

Time to test out my skills for another round!

Work has begun

2008-07-26T12:48:00.000-07:00

Well, a bit has changed since my last post. I now possibly have a job in 2 weeks that gives me a pretty decent income for the region I'm in. So that's going to enable me to live a little better.

I've also made contacts to try and give government contracts or jobs as well. So we'll see how that goes.

As for the site. I've built my traffic strategy for the site. Strategies for now and later. Free, and not so free.

I've also decided to go with the same model that I had for my last site to start with. I'm going to just write a bunch of articles and put some advertising on the pages and hope that people click, or buy. I just need some money to start rolling in. I've built a site plan on paper just to help me visualize that the site doesn't need that much coding. And the navigation doesn't need to be that fancy. In fact, the simpler the better for seo purposes. And it is indeed simple! My aim is to simply hit 50$ a month by September. An honest and do-able goal. I hope to fly by it. But I'm taking baby steps. Starting from small, and growing huge is the plan.

Hope to have most of the site coded by tonight. I need to work while my motivation is high. I'm giving myself 2 weeks to really work on the site hard. Since I have 2 weeks before training starts for my new job and I have no other alternative right now as far as money making goes...so unless something else comes along in those 2 weeks to steal hours from my site, the site is going to get a lot of attention.

Work has finally begun

As for traffic, going to start with the same thing I did the first time and start with publishing my articles to article directories. Both for links, and traffic. Then I'll add a bunch of other methods I have in mind.
Now today I started actually coding the site. I've built

still no income...

2008-07-22T12:12:00.000-07:00

It's one week later and still no job...although I just got a possible position as a mystery shopper...but that's just side income.

I think that for the rest of the night I'm going to work on my website. I'm going to build my traffic strategy, and start getting myself a little bit of income coming my way using Adsense, and build a list too...But I need free ways of getting traffic right now, so that's going to be a big part of it. Need me some cashflow...

I'mm off to go write my plan outside. Going to take advantage of the sun for a bit.

job hunting sucks...

2008-07-17T12:28:00.000-07:00

Well, today I was out job hunting...what a depressing thing to do...It really convinced me that I need to start putting more work into my business. That, and I really need to get an idea of where I'm going right now for the sake of my relationships future.

So I have a lot of big stuff to think about right now...Times are tough...these times suck.

Anyway, as for the product development. I've gotten the books and have analyzed them. So I know what they lack, and what would add value. Now I just need to do them. But there's one thing that I'm missing. I've found out that I would be better off using a lot of photos, so I need a way to get those...I don't have a budget for those though...so I might just need to partner up with a site which has the pictures that I need, or some kind of other partnership. Only thing I have now that's possible is sending them off to a site I know which I'll be an affiliate for.

Anyway, I need to go start work on that product now, so that I can get the hell out of this damn rat race...I have all the knowledge, I just need to do it....

wordtracker = done

2008-07-06T06:50:00.000-07:00

Alright, wordtracker research is done. Got 14 000 keywords which will come in handy later on. Now the focus today is on finding out which products I'm going to purchase to do the product research. I have a couple of good ideas...but I don't want to go over-budget on this...

Also, after I'm done with that, I'm going to go check out the competition once more to get some more pointers and ideas.

Anyway, going back to work! cya later

EDIT: Well, did more work on the business. I checked out the main competition and I've discovered alot of things in their copy that I could use against them. Things I noticed where they went wrong, as well as where they did good. It's pretty surprising what you can find out when you actually know what your reading and what feelings each sentence is supposed to bring out in people. Well, I'm going to finish my spying tonight, and then decide and most likely purchase the reading material that I want to create the products. I'm going to need to start thinking about a traffic strategy soon though. I've got the basics down, but I'm going to be looking to go with various channels of traffic. I'm going to be hitting my industry with a bang. It's going to take a little longer than I expected, with all of the plans I'm making to increase the conversion of the site with the ideas that I'm getting from this competitor research.

Well, until next time!

Competitor research done

2008-07-03T13:47:00.000-07:00

Hey there,

Well, I got the funding for the start-up of the site. I have the minimum required for the month...I also have enough for product researc and development. In fact, I've already done the research yesterday. I've decided what the first product was going to be. I've also noticed that I could have an advantage over the market by hitting a specific niche ( a large niche...extremely large...) which isn't being targeted properly at the moment. There are a couple of products that I've found on clickbank, aimed specifically at that market, but the marketing sucks and I had to dig into page 12 of the marketplace to find these. So they're pretty far on the radar.

I don't think it's because the products aren't good, I think it's all in the marketing. The sites look cheaply done compared to the competition.

The competition being the more general targetted products. Those products would be my main competition as far as I'm concerned. But I can still steer people away with crafty words. I also have some good ideas for making the visitors take the call to action. I'm also going to copy some techniques that I found my competitors using I think...Some were pretty clever. But I still have original ideas up my sleeve.

So tomorrow I'll be doing the wordtracker research, ordering the product research/building material.

Re-launch happenning soon

2008-07-01T15:46:00.000-07:00

Well, there's been a couple of changes to the way the site is heading.

First off, the least important news. Is that I've decided to mix my last idea with what I previously had in mind. I'll built reports on different subjects, and use the membership site as an upsell to get repeat purchases from customers who're already familiar and happy with my products. I just thought that having 1 product making 1000 sales a year at 37$, would be an extra 37 000$ in the old bank account by the end of the year...which is of course a nice thing to have. So I opted to getting a couple of info products out there. But I need to scope out the competition to see what they're doing.

I've been doing product research for what stuff I'm going to need to read to compile together my product. I've got a good couple of ideas. Around 5 ideas that I really like. so 5 times 37 000$ would equal 185 000$. Which is plenty for me to start investing in real estate. And more than plenty for me to be happy.

The second news is that I now have a financial backer for my venture. My father! He's agreed to help me get the money I need to get the site up and going and be able to sustain itself. So now I just need to put everything that I need down, while still being realistic, I'm not going to go overboard with the spending just because I'm not paying for it. That'd be unfair...

Anyway, I also contacted that partner I had to create the product with me. It's been a while since I last contacted her though...hope she's still interested in the deal...but if she isn't I've still got a back-up plan where I could still do the product without her...

Well, time to go and see what I'm going to be needing to launch this re-launch this online venture of mine...

Renewed Enthusiasm

2008-06-24T18:36:00.000-07:00

Alright, I gotta admit that in recent months, I've been lacking enthusiasm for this online venture of mine. Ever since taking my last website down actually...

I just haven't had the same excitement for the business...I was finding all sorts of things that would make my venture be unsuccessful. I wasn't differenciating myself enough to make people choose me over others in my niche.

Well, today was a pretty low point, I've finished college and I'm now job hunting. I also decided to work a little bit on the site...but I wasn't really digging it...Then I got a tiny breakthrough and I got a little excited. THEN, I got THE idea...

The idea that combines everything I had previously into one big magnificent idea.

See, I was focusing on creating many small info products. But the bad thing about that is that informatino on that subject is EVERYWHERE online...so I just couledn't go and only sell information. SO, I'm going to be building a membership site. Not just a membership site, but an interactive one. One that the customers can shape into what they need.

Now THAT is what I was looking for to differentiate myself from everything that's out there. I've been checking out stuff like crazy for the past hour and working myself into a frenzy. Writing down what the user experience was, what I needed to put into it. Just vomiting the information from my head onto paper. I see this as a possible 50 000$ a month earner at the top of it's success. But even if it reaches only ( only.... ) 5000$ a month, that would mean I'd hit my first goal income.

So now I'm putting all my effort into this one product. The salesletter is also going to be pretty amazing stuff. I want it to be interactive with what the persons goals are. So I'm going to be building several salesletters for the different goals the customers could have in mind.

But now I need money to make this thing possible...So I'm going to be continuing to build my business plan so that I can get some financing to build this thing...if I don't end up financing it myself that is...oh well. Time to make use of this new found fire.

Do what I like, THAT's the goal

2008-06-06T19:10:00.000-07:00

Hey there!

Well, it's been another long while since I've updated this blog of mine. I've just been so busy with college coming to an end and trying to work on everything to ensure that I can do my best.

But having a business is still in the back of my head of course. I just get to work on it a lot less than I would like to...

Trying to set a date to be able to talk to my potential partner right now. And after writing this post, I think I'm going to be checking out some of my marketing related emails to browse through and see if there are any gems in there. And then I'll try and determine another product that I could create myself from the list of products that I have. I'm liking the monthly subscription idea. Something with a low monthly price like Jimmy D.Brown is using. Something to get people into the funnel. I'd also make this for a set number of months. So I wouldn't need to update this one all the time, I'd create a set of autoresponders and just let it all run on automatic afterwards. So in reality, I'm making a higher priced product, but people are simply paying for the additional "chapters" if you will.

Not to mention, I need to get cracking on those free articles to go get me some subscribers to my list.

*sigh* so much to do, so little time in a day...one day I'll be able to do JUST this, do what I like to do. That is the goal.

1 partner interested, business model figured out

2008-05-23T14:30:00.000-07:00

Hey there,

Well here's a little update.

Only one of the 3 potential partners emailed back with interest, haven't received any news from the others. So I'm trying to schedule a call with the one who's interested so that we can discuss this a little further. I haven't done this before, so I'm a little nervous. Especially since I don't get that much practice in speaking in english, because I come from a small town where the majority is french. But I'm going to have to just go ahead and do it sometime if I want to be in business. Might as well be now.

I'm also going to be building some products myself I think after watching some videos online. Just like my original plan...But only in my niche. I'll go purchase the top sellers in the niche that I want and just figure out what I could do better than them. I think I'm going to follow the same model as Eben Pagan and I don't remember his name but the creator of hearandplay.com. He's got some very good strategies.

Anyway, that's that for now. The end of June is coming. That's the date that I can finally start getting a job and starting my business for real!

3 potential products

2008-05-16T13:08:00.000-07:00

Well, I just finished emailing to 3 potential writers for my products. I changed the project idea that I had originally into 3 seperate projects. I originally wanted to have many trainers opinions on weight loss, but then I thought that maybe the opinions would clash, and just leave the reader more confused. So I decided to ask each trainer to create a seperate product for 3 different sub niches in a niche. I tried 3 different markets which I split by age group, and situation as well. I think that this will pretty much give me a portion of all the markets in that sector of weight-loss industry. So now I'm just waiting to hear back from them. Hoping that it's positive news...if only ONE gives me a positive answer, I'll use her for the other projects as well.

I also told them various ways that I could offer compensation, ways that would make me not HAVE to pay a big fee to get them to create the product.

I'm feeling good about this progress. Hope it keeps on going.

I'm just feeling good overall I think this week...good stuff!!!

Started new direction

2008-05-14T06:47:00.000-07:00

Well, I've just finished emailing a bunch of potential partners for my first product. It's going to be in one of the most competitive sectors in my industry as well...but I'm confident that I can make it work. I'm just hoping that a lot of them respond positively. That would mean that I can move forward! But I'm having a couple of issues with how I'll be delivering the product. I'd like to create something with a higher value...but maybe I'll save that for later. I'm thinking a simple 37$ ebook might be a good way to make people enter the funnel. Have plenty of products in the list already. Now it's just about making the deals and growing the business.

Oh and yeah, I went to some "recruitment" meeting for primerica with my girlfriend last night. She didn't know what it was and thought I'd like it. I remember that primerica is probably the mlm company with the best product. In my opinion. But we talked about it to several people, and most of them don't like the company. Not because it's a bad company necessarily, but it's agents have given it a bad rep by trying to get everyone they know to join. Being salesmen basically...they had my girlfriend last night after we left, but I knew they were trying to sell the dream rather than the business so I told her what's what and now she doesn't want to join them. She IS interested in building a business with me though. So that's nice. But yeah, we have a meeting with one of the representatives later on today where we were supposed to build a list of 30 people. I didn't because that's not my cup of tea. We'll see how she reacts to that. But I'm a little weary. I like the service they offer, it has potential, but they didn't tell us anything about how they go about getting clients...I think they hinted at the fact that they couldn't do advertising...if that's true then f*** that s***...I only asked her a question an educated person would about how commissions for people under us were distributed and I think I caught her by surprise...she told us she had clients and that we would talk about it today...should be interesting...I don't think I'm going to join, but I just want to see if i know my stuff...a sort of test for myself hehe Is that mean to take advantage of them like that?...lol

EDIT: Sweet!! 3 of the people I've contacted replied back to me already and positively at that! So now I need to actually think up the concept as well as the compensation.

JUST figured out my business model

2008-05-10T14:01:00.000-07:00

Wow, I was just wondering what I would be writing on this blog of mine. Since nothing really developped since the last post except that the website design was done. But just now, ( literally...) I've discovered the angle that I was going to hit my niche with! I've discovered how I was going to create a potentially unlimited number of products for my niche! So NOW I'm excited about business again!

I'm going to be building a mini-course to entice people to sign up. A sort of "how to get started" type of mini-course. Then I'll hit them with the product offers. I'm currently subscribed to 2 major players in the online marketing arena and getting plenty of info by studying how they do their marketing.

So I'm going to go do some planning so that I can start doing this ASAP....and without a big budget...

Here's comes round 2

2008-04-20T17:59:00.000-07:00

Hey there!

Well, my site is finally active. So now I need to design it. Since I've gotten rid of my old site, I have no revenu coming in...so hiring somebody to do t he job is pretty much a no-go...So I'm going to design a simple site for starters. Simple navigation system and all...Hell...maybe I'm just going to rework the graphics on the old site for the new site...then I'd simply have a new look with the same coding behind it...good idea :)

Now as for the site concept. I'm still not 100% sure that I'm heading towards the right direction...Right now, my strategy is to head into it with an "advisor" type of position. Kinda like reporting on the findings that I find online sort of thing. I'd start making money by doing the same stuff that I'd been doing on my old site via affiliate promotions and Adsense. Until I can generate ideas that I can do for products. I've got plenty, but in the fitness market, proof is a big deal maker. So I need I'm coming up with ways to increase the social proof. Since I myself am not a good example right now as far as fitness goes...I like it, but I don't practice what I teach as much as I'd like to...basically, I don't look like somebody who knows what he's talking about.

And for marketing? I'm going to start by following the same route I'd made for myself and start with a 50$ Advertising budget. Which I'd send the people to a squeeze page and onto my list. Which is another thing...I'm not sure what to put as a good enough reason to sign up to my list...So I'm looking for good ideas. I'll also be putting as many articles as I can on it to entice the search engines. When I took my otehr site offline, it was just starting to get some big attention from google...So I was on the right path...But I'll get it back fast...

So now, to go on and create my website template! Here comes round this year.

Fitness niche here I come

2008-04-15T17:46:00.000-07:00

Hello there!

Wow, been a long time since I've updated this good 'ol blog of mine. Well, here's a small update on what's what.

I'm still going ahead with the weight loss niche. But I've expanded on it. I've negociated a bit with supplement companies and have gotten prices for products. Which I like. I'm thinking of using them for my business. I'm thinking of setting up a monthly plan of some sorts using these supplements. But I've also come up with initial products. High priced products that I could sell as well. Well, more like packages...Anyway, I'm looking to produce income in 4 ways right now: affiliate, dropshipping, my products, Adsense.

I'm currently working on the business plan for this venture. While domain issues are solved...I hate the technical stuff of online marketing sometimes...

Anyway, onwards I go.

2 ideas in planning

2008-03-28T22:25:00.000-07:00

Hey there!

Well, everything is already set up. My portfolio site is almost up, got the domain and everything. And the second site is having domain transfering problems because I used paypal instead of their own payment processor...So going to have to wait I guess...but their support system is not functionning properly...which is not a good thing...

Anyway, I have 2 business developments now in my mind. I still have that weight loss idea. I've gotten ideas and modified it a bit after seeing a commercial for something on tv. I'm going to test it out anyway. Currently talking to manufacturer about pricing and all that stuff.

Second idea has just come to me this week. Since I've started putting more time into creating my portfolio site, I've been looking at more art stuff online so that I can find the odd freelance job here and there to help pay the bills. Well I stumbled upon a game development site. Where people come together to build games, some for pay, but some for experience. I'm looking for experience as well. But I just thought about what it would be like to create an online game. I have 2 killer ideas for online games. And it would mean that I'm able to bring a new company into my region and maybe even develop the industry here. I'm seriously looking into it, both for the possibilities and experience aspect, and for the business possibilities.

Oh, I'm not giving up on creating my business just yet!!

Replacing projects...

2008-03-25T11:35:00.000-07:00

I've decided to scrap my current projects...I've got reasons I'd rather not discuss here. So I'm changing both of my current sites. One will become my career portfolio site. The other will become my new niche site.

I'm going to start catering the dreaded weight loss niche. I've got an idea, and I'm going to go forward with it.

Nothing more than that right now. I'll give details as time flows by.

Cya!

Management strategy

2008-03-20T06:22:00.000-07:00

Alright, well I sat down and built myself a plan. Sort of a step 1. Because I was overwhelmed with everything that I felt I had to do. So I created a simple plan, with clearly defined goals. After I'm done with this, I'll create myself another plan with other goals.

Check it out:

- Get traffic cheap & focus on getting the leads. Ad budget = 50$/month. Track all avenues for best ROI. ( I've already passed that amount this month for adwords...and I didn't even get a positive ROI from it...Which leads me to my next thing on my list...)

- Work on updating product to 39$ product.
( So that I can get better ROI when advertising...I'll still use the 10$ version though as a marketing strategy that I learned.)

- Install forums
( Heading towards more of a community site, so this would be a good first step to take. )

- Create squeeze page for my product list to generate leads.
( I only have a salesletter right now, but I want to switch focuses from getting sales, to getting leads, so I'm going to build a squeeze page for it.

- Post on forums with links in sig.
( traffic for free! yay!! )

And that's it. And when will I know when I've achieved those goals?

- When 39$ upgrade is done
- When forum is installed
- When I post on forums every day
- When I manage my ad budget
- When squeeze page is finished

Hope this new management strategy helps me gain some focus...

Well, off I go to work on these things!

let's get started! product #2

2008-03-18T14:53:00.000-07:00

Well, I think I've pretty much gotten all the benefits that I was going to be getting from that membership site, so now it's time to get started putting it all together.

So I've setup my cart, and for now, I'll only accept Paypal. I'll upgrade to having my own merchant account when I actually have a business ID this summer...

Anyway, I'm excited, I'm working on a new product right now, a monthly report. Similar to that of the Reese Reports, but for my own niche. Well, for one of my niches. Going to charge 9.97$ a month for it. Looking for 250 subscribers a month to start things off.

Now with all the new strategies in place, this sould project should work better. I've started to put the pieces together and it's starting to take shape.

I also have a potential partner which I'm trying to get a conference with over the internet. He seems very willing to work with me on my site, so this is very good. But I'm also going to contact another site owner I know who just published a book in this niche to see if he'd like to participate in my project as well. Would be nice because his site is highly ranked for the niche.

I'm also going to work on upgrading my current sales process with my first product. I'll try and do as much as I can tonight.

Things are insane...

2008-03-17T13:52:00.000-07:00

Hello people!

Well...I've got the ideas...now I'm struggling to see if I should purchase 1shoppingcart at around 80$ a month...It would "really" be only 60$ a month though because I'm already paying 20$ for aweber a month...and I was getting ready to purchase an ad tracking software for another 20$ a month...this would be a big switch for me...but I think this is what I need to do to step my business up a notch...I need to make a mindmap to map out the ideas I have in my head right now. Right now it's just too much and I can't see clearly.

Still made some sales, but man...so much potential...and I can even re-use my small reports concept again!

Well...still have some videos to watch. I've juste watched only one more hour and I've gotten TONS of more ideas to increase my conversions...it's insane...

EDIT: Alright, I just bought myself a 1shoppingcart account. It's a little weird to get used to, but I'm starting to get the hang of it. I've put up 4 newsletters, but I can't seem to be able to import my old lists...so what I think I'm going to do, is weed out the bad herbs in my list and just send a broadcast message to my list telling them about my new list and those who don't open my emails, just won't know. So I'll just be left with the ones who follow me. Also added alot of things I'm going to do to add personnalization.

Also put my product in there already, doing various tests to see what does what. So tomorrow, I might change the link on my site to my new link. Fun thing I just found out is that I can make a thank you page, which I'll use to put in an offer.

Now there's still a bunch of stuff I haven't played around with...going to be having some fun!

Head is going to explode

2008-03-15T09:22:00.000-07:00

Man...I've gotten SO ANY great ideas this week. I've gotten new incredible ideas for marketing techniques and conversion. Strategies for upselling. Product creation techniques. My head is about to explode! And I'm STILL not finished with the membership site...

So big things are DEFINITELY going to happen when I start rolling out these strategies. But for some of them, I'm most likely going to need a programmer...oh well, it'll be worth it. I'll just use the strategies that I CAN implement now.

Anyway, I got a link exchange request yesterday from a site that's in the top 800 sites online. So that is AWESOME! And just for fun, I checked my own alexa ranking and I'm at 880 000 something....not alot but I DID raise 50 000 spots. So I'm getting up there.

I've gotten word from my writer that the articles should be finished this weekend. So that's some other good news.

Oh, and I've also figured out a great extra source of little income that I cold do, that kinda falls into the small report category, but it will also let me build content at the same time! I'd be building about...4 small reports a month at my best time or 9.97$ each or something like that. That could be a nice little income right there. Anyway, I'm off! I'm not at home right now so I can't work on my strategies...but just you wait this week!

Oh yeah, also thinking of purchasing 1shoppingcart now. Got alot of benefits and I'd have more freedom than with clickbank...With a merchant account, it'd amount to about...80$ a month. Which is alot right now...maybe I'll just add a couple of techniques to increase my conversions and see if I see a change of income that would help me invest in this.

Well, still moving onwards!

A new light is shining

2008-03-12T14:52:00.000-07:00

I can sum up the last 2 days in one word "wow"...

It all started right after I wrote my last post I think...I got an email from a membership site I had joined which I wanted to unsubscribe from because I thought that they sucked because I didn't have access to anything...and this is a marketing site btw. So after 2 weeks, I decided to email them saying I wanted my money back. So I get an email saying that they had gotten my message, and that my trial subscription would end at the end of the next seubscription period. And this is 2 weeks, because it's a 30 day trial period. Anyway, I go back to the site and I finally have access to content. So I decide to check out I fit's worth it...and OMFG!! Yes, I'm using the f-bomb on this one.

It has TOTALLY blown my mind on so many levels. I mean wow, I've never seen any info like this before ANYWHERE. This is stuff I've been wanting to hear about forever! It talks about personnalisation, community site building, product developpment, automation. But on a level that's FAR BEYOND anything out there.

I know I'm sounding a little like a salesman trying to over-hype a product but it's serisously THAT good. I mean, when have I been like this for a product before?...never, right?

Anyway, if you want to know the product, just gimme a comment and I'll let you know. Because this is one product that I'm actually weary about letting other people know about...

Anyway, this information has TOTALLY changed the way I view my site and about so many things that I could do to turn it around.

Oh yeah, remember how I said in my last post that when I have bad days, there's always something that happens to make me get new hope...well I got 2 sales on that day...go figure...

Anyway, back to the topic. I realized that I was SERIOUSLY under-personnalizing the site as well as the use of my resources. So I'm going to start going all out. I've taken so many notes on things to do. I'm also going to start building a community for the site because of many advantages that it can bring.

Man...my head is almost spinning right now...I'm going to be building myself a new business model this month. And I have 3 other site concepts that I know this would work EVEN BETTER with...so after this roject is done, I'll head on over and start those projects.

Well, I'm off, because my time is limited on that membership...

today's a hard day...

2008-03-10T15:23:00.000-07:00

Well, a couple of little things happenning today. Let's start with things related to the site.

Alright, well, I submitted the articles to be rewritten. So that's good. Then I got a negative answer from one of the writers I wanted, but got a positive one from another. But we're still negociating.

Now in other news, I got an offer to translate a site for 400$. A salesletter for one of the products that I promote. I think I'll go ahead with it. Would be good for the good ol account. I'm thinking of starting my marketing site with a bit of that money though.

I modified my idea a little and it's going to be even more original. I hope it'll work nicely. The concept is based around videos. So lots of viral potential. I even ordered my mircophone earlier. So I'm serious about this idea.

I decided to go ahead with the project because last night I sent the broadcast message about a product to my list. And this was a product that my list TOLD ME they would like...but I didn't get one single sale...I mean come on...how unresponsive can a list get? The guys on my list are pretty much a bunch of freeloaders in my opinion...Geez...it's not like this was a 400$ product either...it was 39$...man, I don't get my list right now...I guess they just don't want it bad enough. Or maybe it's all because of the visitors I'm getting...maybe they're untargetted...Anyway, last night I was going around in my head, thinking about how the hell can those gurus make so much money sending one email. I mean, I think I've developped a good relationship with my list...I've done pretty much everything I could do..I've given them great content for free that they would have had to pay for on other sites...So really...the only thing I can think of is that my visitors are either freeloaders, or they don't want it bad enough...

I also took notice on how most marketing "gurus" now put limits on their product launches. So as to make people buy now and not wait. They mostly use the excuse that they want to limit the exposure of the technique so that it still works...It's a great strategy really...but I was trying to see what other market I could make this sort of thing work for me...how I could make it work for me in my business...Or I tried thinking of other things I had a passion for, and making money is one of those...so all that to explain why I had a sudden urge to start work on my marketing site.

I'm tired...every single time I almost give up on my current site...something happens that gives me a glimmer of hope...but then that just goes away...there's no constant income, or even rising income...today's a hard day...

I am a lazy bastard....

2008-03-09T17:38:00.000-07:00

Hello there!

Well, I've sent 5 article to have re-written, and I possibly have a second writer available. Still in negociation phase.

Anyway, now I'm concentrating on working on products. I've found my USP for 2 products. I've got everything I need to distinguish myself from my competitors for one product. And I feel confident about that one. So I guess the only thing that I really can do now is design the product...I can design the content, but then I have to wait for the media to be done, and for the web design afterwards...then I'll most likely need some type of membership software...

I feel lazy...when you reeeeeaaalllyy think about it...it's not hard to take information from somewhere else and improve it...but for some reason, I'm just too damn lazy to do it...I think that was part of what attracted me to affiliate marketing in the first place...oh well. I need to get my lazy ass to work...it would help if things moved fast though...like getting a response from the people who I contacted to do the media...that would surely motivate me somewhat.

Anyway, got an idea for something to add to my autoresponder, so maybe that will help add a little money to my back end. Because my market already told me through a survey that this was something they were very interested in. Let's see if that was true...

tracking software and business model woes...

2008-03-08T11:10:00.001-08:00

Man...I just started watching the traffic secrets videos again and I'm still getting new stuff into my head. Or just remembering stuff that I need to do. I have to stop watching them for a bit because my head is going to explode. I have to let it all sink in hehe

I got so much stuff that I'm wondering about, and other things that I've implemented this morning.

First thing that I looked into, was tracking software, I found a good one that I'm currently testing for 14 days for free, and I've figured it out. It's hypertracker.com. I'm currently tracking a new banner ad that I just put up this morning ( which is the other thing I implemented ). So I'm waiting to see how that will look.

One of the things that has got me all confused about what to do next is 2 business models clashing together. One from Jimmy D. Brown, and the other from John Reese. I'll explain both.

Jimmy D.Brown has the business model of starting from small 10$ reports, creating another report every month, and then just grow from that. His method is more about creating alot of products fast.

While John Reeses method is more about creating "crap", and then improving upon it as time goes to make it profitable. And only working on 1 project at a time to help you focus more on the task at hand.

So I'm now torn between creating another 10$ report OR improving my current report so that it makes me more money before moving on to my next product...

I'd like for it to be making me 300$ a month...That would be my ultimate goal for each 10$ report...But I think that I need to rethink my marketing strategy with these reports...because selling them right now using paid advertising won't bring me much return on investment...The only profitable way is through mailing to my list right now and to my site visitors...But that means the going will be slow and I need things to move faster if I want to achieve my goals for this year.

Wondering if creating these 10$ reports is really the best way to go first...because I have alot of ideas for higher ticket items that would be easier to market because I'd get a higher ROI...Maybe I'll develop these 10$ reports when I have an actual back end in place...ANYWWAY!! I'll just try and determine what my next product will be...but I think it should be something that will provide me with enough ROI for my marketing dollars...

Ugh...so much to think about...

EDIT:

Well, I've spent the beter part of the day checking all sorts of stuff. And I've come to a decision about which products I'd be concentrating on right now, which are the big high ticket items. The ones most likely to be able to work well. I've decided what the first one was going to be also. And I've contacted a company to shoot "how to" videos for the site. Which will be a 97$ membership site. Which would mean I'd only have to sell 60 a year to achieve my first yearly income goal. Trying to piece together how I'd make the other products. Alot of which have a membership component to it for residual revenu after the initial sale.

Now I'm going to check for 5 articles that my writer could write. Which will leave me free to work on finding content ideas for the product. Not worrying about site content for a bit would kick ass!!...if I post an article every 3 days, that means that this initial batch of articles would last me about...2 weeks.

I think I also need to make me a to do list for my operations, because with the new tracking software and everything, I noticed today that things were starting to get a little hectic and that I didn't know where to go next. So most likely something I'll need to do to better manage my time.

Slowly sorting things out.

finally a good idea for opt-ins

2008-03-07T18:43:00.000-08:00

Hello there!

Well I've been busy today by creating 3 seperate marketing plans. 1 for my introductory 10$ reports, one for my portal site, and another for my high end products. Did this so that I could get a better idea how each of them would tie in together. And I got some pretty darn good ideas while doing this. Hell, I even FINALLY got a great idea for a way to gather op-ins for my products. That should ALSO raise my conversions. How's THAT for a nice combo? Want to know what it is? Well it's pretty much "duh" simple. I offered a free chapter of my report! Yeah, simple as that. I offer a free chapter of my report in exchange for them signing in. So then I don't have to spend days creating new content. I just use the content I already have. Sweet stuff. I've just put the opt-in form on the salesletter, so waiting to see what this will do.

I also pulled the plug on Adwords for the report. Because at 10$ a pop. and spending around 3-5$ a day. I wasn't being profitable. So reports don't necessarily work with Adwords. Although maybe they do, but I'm going to have to test each of them out further to find out which ones are the profitable ones. Find every PROFITABLE source of traffic that I can.

Yeah, so I've got a good bunch of strategies in place. Now to act.

I've also finally contacted my writer for a price on re-writing 5 articles. Last I heard from her it was 35$ and I was ok with that.

Well, I'm thinking of pulling a late nighter and working on a whole bunch of stuff on the site this weekend. Since the girlfriends going away again since march break is over...Will give me time to work on my stuff.

I've started doing the planning stage of my next report, almost finished with that. Should start writing it this week, or maybe later on this weekend.

gathering alot of steam for the rest of the year!

Back to work I go!

2008-03-06T11:35:00.000-08:00

Hello there!

Well, I'm back from my little vacation and it was fun :)

Now I checked my stats and seems I made a sale of 115$ during that weekend, sweet! Also made a sale of my own product. So that's good as well. Advertising revenue died down a bit, but I expected that. But I posted another article today so revenu should rise a bit again today and tomorrow. Thinking about changing the placement of the ads though...Adbrite is giving me pretty constant daily earnings, Adsense should start soon enough I imagine as I get more and more articles posted. Still at the .50$-1$ a day mark with advertising. Aiming for the 1-2$/day mark before March is over. Small goal, but I'm being a little conservative since I don't have much experience in this advertising thing.

Anyway, I just got a good idea for a small monthly membership product that I could do. It wouldn't take alot of effort of my part...so it'd be perfect. Charging 10$ a month should be easy for this.

But now I'm trying to think of a good ( and fast ) way to create my new report. I need images for it...I was thinking of doing them in 3D, but it'd take a little bit more time...so I might just draw the illustrations myself and then release the report again with the new 3d images later on. Either way, I'm hoping to get a new product by the end of this month!

Traffic is still doing good, in fact, I had alot more traffic in the first days of this month, went down a bit yesterday though...but oh well!

PR = crap #@~#

2008-02-29T14:53:00.001-08:00

Well put up my first Adsense about an hour ago and I've already made .39$ out of it. with a pretty good CTR. Adding Adsense made my advertising income go up to the 1$/day mark. But it's time to pump that into overdrive.

Funny thing happen earlier. I was at a marketing forum for one of the affiliate programs that I'm in. And there was this thread about PR, and had all these new guys talking about their PR and almost bragging that their PR was 5 (OMG!!!) So I basically asked them what they why they were so hooked on having a good PR. Got all the usual answers that it's important for google and bla bla. " I don't care what they say, for competitive keywords it matters!". So I checked my ranking for a pretty good keyword I know I rank high for. And yeah, I even found out that I raised one spot. I'm now #1 position for that keyword ( sweet ). This has also verified a theory for me that's proving to be true. Won't tell it obviously because then everyone would know a pretty big secret to having a high ranking in SEO. Anyway, I checked the PRs of the site above me, and all the sites under me. They all had PRs of 3. Good for them...hehe what's funny is that my PR is 0. I think I might have busted their bubbles...hehe

Anyway, my fav restaurant just openned up today and I...am a hungry man. Oh yeah, also going away this weekend for a big snowboarding trip. I wonder how my weebsite will fare while I'm away...Hoping for positive results!

Well, Cya next week!

Screw the new concept!

2008-02-28T17:30:00.000-08:00

You know what...screw the new concept. I just realized something while I was shoveling earlier today...

I realized that I was messing up BIG TIME. I mean, here I am, starting to get good traffic for keywords that many people would most likely pay alot of money to be ranked where I'm ranked at. And I'm letting all that go for my own desires...

I was a little hesitant about doing it, but last night I did it. Annndd now it's all changed again. Changed to yet another new format.

See, when I was shoveling, words of wisdom from John Reese popped into my head. " Get visitors from wherever it's profitable!"

And my god...if the traffic is free, then why would I go and throw all that away?!! STUPID!!!

Anyway, I put the site back to what it was, and even updated it so I can now expand it to include ALOT more articles on alot more stuff. Which will make for good Adsense income.

But I'm going to still incorporate something from my plan. I'm going to email my list with new articles as they come out, for a surge of traffic each time a new article gets posted. Which I'm going to try to keep at a MINIMUM of 1 article a week. Google seems to like a site that updates so...

Oh, and now I'm also going to start working on my second report. The first one is still making sales. I have a conversion of about 2% last time I checked. Which is pretty much the high average of direct response. So I'm happy, but I'd definitely like to raise it. So I'm going to be looking into testing my salesletter to raise conversion.

Anyway, that's it for now!

content research...

2008-02-27T13:56:00.000-08:00

Hello there!

Well, hard at work today. I started gathering me some research material for content for my new concept. Where I believe that writing my own articles would be most beneficial instead of hiring a writer to do the work. Because then I can insert my personnality into the articles. Plus, it'll help me better know my stuff :P

So yeah, today I gathered most likely a hundred articles ( or pretty close to...) that I can use as ideas for articles to my list. And I'm FAR from being finished. My head is gonna explode from all of the ideas I have.

I also put up an ebay auction for my ebook. It's a pretty lame auction page attempt...but I'm still not sure if I want to include Ebay into the mix...We'll see...

I started the autoresponder and have 2 sequences done for the product site. But the work today was mostly aimed towards content for the site. I think that once I'm done with the little section I'm researching, that I'm going to start re-creating the content that I currently have on the site into the new format. So that I can get this sucker off and running!

Whoa, I've got affiliates

2008-02-26T14:11:00.001-08:00

Yeah, I just checked my stats on my product site and I noticed I had hoplinks. So I was wondering what was going on. So I went on clickbank to check on my stats. And lo and behold, seems I have some affiliates...25 of them to be exact.

Now I was surprised as hell to see I had so many affiliates from only a 10$ product, where I'm only giving away 50%...So a whopping 5$...I think I should probably make an affiliate page ASAP now...

But there's anotehr big surprise. One of the names in my affiliate list rang a bell...as if I had promoted a product of theirs myself at one time...So I checked my stats for the past year and it wasn't one of those products...so it was one that I promoted before...So then I checked those products...and to my surprise...my hunch was right...it seems that I may have Rosalind Gardner as an affiliate of mine...That is, if I base my own hoplink that goes on over to her product that is. If that's true, then that kicks ass!

Anyway, on to other stuff, I've sent a message to my list about the changes I was thinking of making and I got some emails telling me they loved the idea. But I also checked my aweber stats and saw that 60 people had unsubscribed from my list since the last time I had cleaned my list of unsubscribes which was just before the message was sent out hehe. Oh well!

So now I'm trying to decide what my next course of action is going to be:

- Setup the main site
- Setup an autoresponder message for product site
- Setup affiliate program page

I've already finished the new site template, now I just need to make articles. And I've already got a good idea for the autoresponder content. Buuuuuut I think I'll go with the autoresponder message. If I'm lucky maybe I can finish it tonight!

Alright, tiem to get to work!

Time to work on the good 'ol list

2008-02-25T09:27:00.000-08:00

Alright, so I'm really working hard on cutting down my workload on my business this week. And I think I've stumbled upon what could be the perfect business structure for me. Check this out, maybe it's a structure that you'd be able to adapt yourself!

Alright, so everything would be centered around my main newsletter. I would create my main site, out of only a splash page wich I would market. Oh yeah, I'm only going to start using paid marketing from now on, as well as JV/affiliate methods. I'm not going to try and do any of the other more complicated stuff...I'm trying to cut out the complicated stuff...

So yeah, I have my splash page that has a salesletter to tell them why they should opt-in. After that, I deliver emails, about 2-3 times a week. Which I set up in an autoresponder sequence of course so it's all automated. In those emails, I just say a couple of things, you know, so they can get to know me and build somewhat of a relationship with them. Then I send them to a link. That link will send them to a page where the only thing on it are a header graphic, the article, and advertising in the form of Adsense or Adbrite depending of the nature of the article. No other forms of distractions available to them. They only have 2 options, close the window, or click the advertising.

Now I'm not going to make these articles available to them again, apart from a membership archive site where I'll stock all of the articles I send out. So they'll get tremendous value out of the newsletter itself. It'll build trust in me that I deliver good stuff. If they want to get the membership archive, then it's their choice.

Now, while this is going on, and I'm building a relationship through giving quality content for free, I'm going to be building an infoproduct empire on related stuff. But in other formats and adjusted into systems. So that when the relationship and trust is there, that they'll be more willing to purchase.

I remember thinking of doing something like this a while back...but I didn't want to do it because I wanted the SEO traffic...But now I'm going to let go of wanting SEO traffic. I'm going to focus on stuff that I have control over, and work on perfecting that instead.

Oh, and the product has gotten more sales still. So I'm happy :) I'm looking to bring it into making 300$ a month. But I think most of the money I made, I made through my list, so I'm going to concentrate on the list for now.

Time to work on that list of mine!

So much to do

2008-02-22T20:29:00.000-08:00

First off, Thanks Jon :) Getting affiliates onboard is on the to-do list hehe.

But unfortunately, sales have dried up, I think the sudden burst came from my message to my list. I guess it just goes to show you how important a list is. I think going back to it and working on it some more to improve it would be pretty beneficial...

Anyway, I've changed the site design just a tiny bit to make it look better and it does! And I didn't have to change much of the coding either. So hopefully, it won't affect how google sees me.

Now I need to figure out ways to get traffic to the site for free while I build products for site #1. Then getting free traffic from affiliates will make things easy. That's to come this summer. But I'm going to be creating a small membership product for it so...MAYBE I'll be able to put up some PPC ads for it...

I've also started to work on organizing my business financials. I didn't even know I had Excel, and it's fun. It really shows you where your at and where the money is going and coming in.

Alright, so I've got around 300 Keywords on Adwords right now, with around 250 to go. After this, I'm going to move on to another PPC Search Engine I think...

So many things to improve...so little time in a day...wish I had more money to pay people to do some of the stuff I need to do...someday that day will come...

Sales are rolling in!

2008-02-20T12:06:00.000-08:00

Oh yes, I woke up this morning to check my emails and what do I see to my surprise, a sales notification from clickbank!!

HELL YEAH!!

then I scoll down a bit more checking the emails I needed to delete and found ANOTHER sale.

SWEET!!

Now I just came home from college and ANOTHER SALE!

NICE!!

Plus I've got 2 emails of people who want to buy but either don't have a credit card, or live abroad. So I'm going to settle those as well.

But yeah, 3 sales already! I think they all came from my mailing to my list.

Plus I've gotten alot of encouraging words for the other products and the website itself. Did get 2 negative ones, on being a guy who wanted it all for free, and the other one being a little rude...But I guess you need to get used to that when you sell products. Can't make eveybody happy.

So now what...MARKETING!

Market the product through PPC, and build content through my writer. And build more products. Speaking of which, I need to start creating a new small report for next month. I've gotten a concept on my drive from college today for an upsell product to the current one I have. Which I could potentially sell for around 67$ I imagine. So I'm going to build all the mini reports, and then I'll join them all together into one big product.

Oh yes...it's all looking to be coming together at last.

Big things going to happen this year.

2008-02-19T14:15:00.000-08:00

Alright, well I've finally got Adwords sending traffic to my product site, as well as a link from my site going to it. Now my plan with the marketing of this site is just going on all the major PPC engines and owning my market hehe.

I also just wrote my letter to send to my list where I mention the product. So let's hope this generates a few sales.

Also, in that letter I mentionned 3 other products that I've been thinking of developping. Which is what I'm going to share with you right now!

First product is that membership site that I've most likely talked to you about. I'm going to charge 3.97$ a month. My immediate goal for it is to get 500 subscribers to it.

Second product is a high end product. A kit of some sorts that normally sells for around 400$. I've gotten the hold on a wholesaler for the product and I'd be looking at some sweet profit margins...and a definite Affiliate puller. But I need to be able to have a business ID to order wholesale stuff, so that'll have to wait until summer.

Last product that I'm starting to think about...is me giving up my time for money. But no cheaply. Yes, I'm currently thinking of consulting. Right now I have the price of 100$ for a month of consulting, and 500$ for a lifetime...but those are just random numbers...It would be a nice high end product to start things off and have people get to know me. And with time, I'd charge more and more as I get more well known until I hit a price limit.

That's my plan as far as online projects go...but This week I got a great idea for a physical business...a direct marketing business. So I've been researching and emailing manufacturing companies to check for prices and I've been building a business plan. I'm really optimistic about this opportunity. If it can work out, I'd most likely be looking at millions a month. And I'm not going to let the idea go to waste. I'm sure that it's a winner and it's in a market that I love and have knowledge in.

I'm looking forward to what this year will bring.

Google finally #1 traffic source

2008-02-17T12:47:00.000-08:00

Alright, I think I mentionned that I wanted to redesign site #1. But now I just thought of an issue...See, The way I'm seeing things right now. The way I'm going to use site #1, is a a search engine bait. And right now, it's just starting to take start to REALLY take effect. Google has finally started to become my main source of traffic this month. Without any Adwords traffic. So I don't want to take the chance to take all that hard work away by changing the coding of the site and messing things up, because it took a good couple of months to get to this point in google traffic. MSN and Yahoo are pretty far behind now...Maybe I should try out a trick that I think help me obtain more traffic from google...

So I'm really thinking of keeping the site structure as is...but adding to it. I had started modifying it already...don't think there's alot more I'd need to change...

Anyway, I've pretty much finished my template for my new marketing site. Now to code it, I'm going to try my hand at CSS with this site. Doesn't look that hard from what I see...

And no sales from my product yet. But I just added a link to it on site #1, and I'm currently adding keywords to it's Adwords campaign. Next comes the newsletter message...I need to come up with a good letter though...

Moving along!

My new MARKETING website

2008-02-15T16:56:00.001-08:00

Yes, you've read that right, I've just bought hosting for a marketing related website. I'm diving into the crowd. I have an original concept, and I'm going to head on into this supposedly hard market with the aim at making a name for myself in it and to give people HONEST opinions about products...Because there's too much crap about what works and what doesn't online. I'm going to be the guinea pig.

Using my site, I'm going to use the marketing products and I'm going to tell people what works and what doesn't. But that's the only thing I'm saying right now without giving the big stuff in my concept away. But it's going to be big.

Most likely, this blog will become an extension of that site. But the fun thing is that I will still work on my current project as I go along, because this is going to be the guinea pig that I test out stuff on.

I'm seeing alot more possibility in this becoming a success than my current site...but who knows!

Now have 3 sites!

Oh yeah, I've also started to track my expenses and my income with Excel. I didn't even know I had that program. Sure that this will help me keep tabs on what's what in my business.

Well, off to work!

Finally got account activated

2008-02-14T12:19:00.000-08:00

Seems Cliakbank had forgotten to activate my account when they accepted my product...oh well. Now It's activated and paid for, so now I just have to promote the hell out of it!

Which has already started, put up some Adwords just now. Let's see if this has a positive result. After that, I'm going to post a message to my list. Now let's get things STARTED!!!