milliondollarmaybe - the blog

What a lazy b**tard! I came back from a nice two week break in Turkey a few weeks ago and I just haven’t been arsed to do any writing on my blog since I got back. How lazy is that?

Having said that I’ve been busy with other things so maybe I’ve got an excuse. Nah not really!

Well hopefully I’ll change that anyway because I’ve also just updated a report that I’m giving away (you can get it by clicking over there on the right).

The 7 Deadliest BS Factors That Will Kill Your Marketing Success - And How To Avoid Them!

Basically it’s all about the stuff they don’t tell you when you buy their ‘get rich’ schemes.  As far as I know I’ve never come across information like this before because everyone seems to be out there to bullsh*t everyone else!

Well hopefully my report will get round and even if it stops a couple of people wasting their hard earned cash, then at least I’ve done some good in the world today.

 Maybe we should all be thinking like that…what good can we do in the world today?

 Nice thought!

Anyway ‘get rich’ schemes just don’t work…we all know it, but we still keep buying them. Are we just a greedy lot and want the quick fix? I reckon so, but there are a few fundamental reasons why these sort of programs will NEVER work for some people. This report tells all…no fluff…no hype…no BS.

Even if I say so myself I’m really quite pleased with it so go ahead and download it now…it’s free!

I’ve just come across the best Adwords video tutuorials I’ve ever seen and they’re FREE! How cool is that? 

I came across them after I signed up for yet another newsletter…Jeremy Palmer’s ‘QuitYourDayjob‘. Although I was reluctant to add to my endless inbox of junk emails this sounded OK, so I thought ‘another one won’t hurt!’

Anyway, the long and short of it is, I think Jeremy Palmer is the real deal and he genuinely gives so much good info away for free!

Included in his free stuff is a fantastic ebook called  High Performance Affiliate Marketing. You must read it - it’s better than most paid for stuff (in fact I believe he used to charge for it).

But it was the free Adwords video tutorials that really got me. Everything was included from setting up a campaign through to optimizing your keywords…all explained in really simple terms. I thought I knew enough about Adwords but how wrong I was!

I could go on about these videos all day but the best thing to do is to check them out for yourself at :-

http://www.searchmarketingvideos.com

Oh and by the way I’m not an affiliate of that site so I’m not on commssion or anything. No I just think that everyone should see them.

Also there are free video tutorials on Yahoo and Microsoft PPC but I haven’t had time to look at them yet - I bet they’re just as good.

It really makes a change when a successful marketer gives truly useful information away for free so the beginner can actually start earning before shelling out for this course or that. Most will offer a teaser and then you have to buy the product to get to the juicy stuff but with the free Adwords tutorials you really get the meat. I can’t recommend it highly enough.

I’ve just uploaded a new website I’ve been working on - www.saveonit.co.uk.  The plan is to make it SEO and USER friendly so that anything anyone wants to buy online, they can, without having to do endless searches all over the internet. It’s a nice idea and nothing new so who knows whether it’ll be a money spinner? 

Even if it makes no money I’m enjoying doing it as it’s all CSS based which is how I like to build my websites where possible (and if you don’t know what CSS is, Google it to find out - it’s worth knowing if you need your own website).

Now it’s nowhere near finished - in fact it never will be - but I thought I’d run it as a hobby and try to add new links regularly. Maybe it’ll grow enough for Google to find it rather than me waste my money on PPC!

My intention is to add coupons, reviews and other shopping related stuff as well as affiliate links but you know how it is, the old motivation starts to wane abit, especially now the sun’s out down here in li’l old Shoreham!

Anyway the intention is there so if you want to buy anything online you can add to ‘my millions’ (said with tongue firmly in cheek) by seeing if it’s on here first.

I might even post how it’s going!

Just lately I’ve been pondering with the idea of going back into offline business in the real world rather than the virtual one …

Why?

Because I actually earnt more money!

It’s not that I don’t believe that marketing on the internet works, on the contrary, it does, but with the amount of effort you have to put in whilst never knowing for sure if  ‘it’s going to work’…I sometimes think that I’m just chasing the dream of earning a million dollars a day while out playing golf, etc.

Even though I know this is impossible and all the busllshitters out there who tell you otherwise are lying through their teeth, you can’t help feeling that maybe there is a way.

There’s not!

Internet marketing takes a lot of time, energy and effort and done well can earn an awful lot of money.

BUT…

So can real world offline business.

This is something that I’ve lost sight of lately. For example there is a highly successful direct marketer in the UK called Andrew Reynolds and part of his sales tactic  to get you to buy his stuff,  is to show slides of his dad’s empty shop whilst waiting for the customers to come in.

It’s very powerful and you start to believe that this type of offline business is doomed to failure. You get taken over by the images and before you know it you’re buying into Andrew’s ‘Cash on Demand’ system and adding to his twenty million pound ($40,000,000) fortune.

However I have just recently finished reading ‘Anyone Can Do It’ by Duncan Bannatyne, a UK entrepreneur who is now worth over £300,000,000 ($600,000,000) and he hardly even knows how to switch a computer on! He could eat Andrew Reynolds for breakfast!

Basically his fortune started from an ice cream van which led on to greater things. He now owns a chain of gymnasiums across the UK. His book is totally inspiring and the fact that he didn’t even start his business until he was thirty just makes me want what he’s got…and just maybe, I’m not too old (43 and kidding myself perhaps, but you gotta have goals)!

Anyway the bottom line is, conventional business can make you a fortune .

In fact although there is a statistic that says the internet had made more millionaires in the last ten years than in the last centuary, which although probably true, I wouldn’t mind betting that there are more people who earn really good money from an ordinary offline business than the millions who fail online. And despite what they say, having a successsful business doesn’t necessarily require you to work all the hours in a day.

It’s all about marketing and managing your business…online or off…to get the financial freedom that we all crave.

If you want to read ‘Anyone Can Do It’ I highly recommend it, you can get it here:-

Prepare to be motivated…

I’m on literally hundreds of ‘lists’ and to be honest the only reason is because I’m too lazy to unsubscribe from most of them. Having said that there are a few marketers whose emails I do open and every now and then I check out what they’ve got to offer.

Well one such email came to me the other day recommending the latest offering from Anik Singal and Rosalind Gardner - Blog Classroom and for anyone wanting to set up a blog whose a little unsure how to do it, they’ve put up some first class videos.

http://www.blogclassroom.com/blog/

I was skeptical at first but decided to watch them anyway and to my amazement I found out a couple of things I didn’t know already (checkout the immediate traffic videos).

It’s great to see at last someone giving away genuinely useful information for free which although they’re after your name and email address for selling a course later, I think this is a fair trade. The videos are genuinely good and many will find them really useful, especially if you are not particularly technical.

I’ve been a bit busy lately and not had any time to update my blog or update the milliondollarmaybe website. Of course I’ve been checking my emails daily and as usual those f***ing spammers are trying to post useless comments on the blog…and as usual I just mark them as Spam and delete them.

It’s just another example of internet marketing dishonesty - or internet pollution to put it another way.

Anyway I’ve just activated the Akismet plugin which should fight back but isn’t it a shame that it comes to this? After all blogging for legitimate purposes, i.e to provide information  and for making valuable comments to get backlinks for genuinely useful purposes is great.

Unfortunately in all walks of life there are parasites who feed off the decency of others and it seems to me the internet marketing field is filled with these parasites!

Maybe I’ve just had a bad couple of weeks!!

Of all the shite that’s out there on the ‘internet marketing’ and ‘make money online’ niches, the thing I hate the most…the part that I think is the most dishonest…the crap that makes my blood boil…OK I’m just going to calm down for a second…the biggest BS factor of the lot as far as I’m concerned is the fact that when they try to sell you ‘how to make a zillion dollars in a day’, they haven’t a clue what sort of person you are!

The plain truth of the matter is (am I being negative?)…is that not everybody has the skills, mindset or tenacity to build, run and believe in their own business, especially not an internet based business.

Despite what they tell you, it is hard and takes time, dedication and continual learning to become successful online or in any business for that matter. I’m not saying this to put anyone off but I hate seeing people getting ripped off and I believe that the majority of internet marketing wannabes are doing just that…geting ripped off!

How do I know this?

Well how about this. I have spend a small fortune (I’m too embarrassed to say how much) on this program and that to try and ‘maybe make my million dollars’ and although I do make money online, it’s not been as much as when I had my conventional business. Now that said I don’t mind ‘coz I hated that business but the point is, do not believe them if they say it’s easy.

Now you may detect from the tone of this post that I’m somewhat peeved. Yep, that’s because I’ve been chatting to a mate of mine today who has paid out loads more than even me and he still hasn’t made any money…and he is totally dedicated!

He has spent so much time, energy, money and is worse off than before he started. How many others would be prepared to put in this kind of effort? Not many I suspect but millions buy the products! I tell you the make money niche is full of shit!

There I’ve said it! And of course it stands to reason, why do they want to tell you about it if it’s so good?

Now I’m not saying you can’t make a fortune online, on the contrary, we all know you can. Anyone who truly has the DESIRE to make it should be able to, but the sad fact of the matter is that so few genuinely have that desire!

If you have go for it. If you haven’t, don’t believe the hype…there is no easy way!

My H2O report goes through this and other BS factors so go ahead, download it and save some cash if you’re tempted to buy the latest ‘Get Rich’ scam!

Nothing to do with internet marketing or anything like that today, but something completely different. It’s the 6th April 2008 and a few days ago people were walking around in shorts. And just when we thought summer was on it’s way, the good old English weather throws this at us…

Yep that’s snow on the beach! I’ve lived on Shoreham Beach for nearly twelve years now and although we’ve had a few episodes of snow in that time I’ve never seen it settle like this.

But that’s not all. Myself and a friend took our kids up into the hills at the back of Shoreham for some sledging and snowball action…it was great.

However the thing that really got me was that there were some adults up there also messing around…but how about this…they didn’t have any kids!

Most of us take the rat race far too seriously I think and very often forget to let our hair down. For me and those adults up there, acting like kids was a day to remember.

Perhaps we should all do this a bit more often.

It’s the 1st April and I haven’t written much lately primarily because I had some recently bad family news that put everything into perspective, and secondly, I haven’t got much to say.

However it has struck me lately how many of the ‘lists’ I’m on spout useless crap just to keep in contact. We’re all told you need a list to make any money online and I suppose it must be true but I have to say now that even the ’big name’ email messages, I just delete without even reading them. Others are telling me they do the same thing so is this list building business yet another online scam just to write about, produce a product for and then sell?

There is no doubt that a database of customers to backend sell to IS a proven way to make money, but it seems to me that most (obviously not all) ‘internet marketers’ are getting this all wrong.

After all if you are emailing your list just to sell a product, then another product, then a different product, without offering some kind of service, then this type of business is all fake. And while this fakery is exploited by the ‘gurus’ who have lists of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, for most of us it is just plain dishonest (in my opinion). 

When I had my traditional business I only contacted my customers when I genuinely had something of value to offer them. The true marketing experts will be backend selling all the time but only with related products to their primary business. It seems to me therefore that list building just because we are told ‘you must have a list’, is all wrong!

By all means build a list but don’t bombard it with trash. Write with decent, honest information as and when it is appropriate, and not just for the sake of it.

I for one NEVER buy from emails I get all the time, especially the ones that recommend the products that everyone else is recommending, i.e. the latest ‘launch’. How can the new product be tried and tested so it will work FOR YOU, if it’ s brand new? How can the marketer truly recommend it without the proof it works? If I buy I want to find out more, just as I would do in the real world, so an email recommendation is not good enough, on it’s own.

Maybe I’m too cynical but it seems more and more people I come across agree with this. Maybe in the short term it works for some, but I feel the only way to build a long term successful business is to offer your customers, value, quality and ultimately great service. Just because we are all interested in the virtual world of online marketing, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t offer service too.

So with that said, anyone whoever buys a product on my recommendation, please feel free to email me or telephone me, my contact details are available on the contact page on the www.milliondollarmaybe.com website.

Apart from eating loads of chocolate over the Easter weekend, I’ve also been getting into this datafeed malarky!

It seems that it’s the buzz word nowadays if you’re into affiliate marketing and while there seems to be several programs out there which do the donkey work when it comes to providing datafeed content to your website, I thought I’d have a go myself.

After all we all want plenty of fresh new content for our websites for those greedy little search engine spiders!

Well the problem seems to be that many of the software products out there give a line of javascript code or an Iframe for your datafeed info. Unfortunately Google and the like can’t see this sort of stuff so they ignore it. No, if it’s fresh content for SEO then the goodies have got to be able to be seen by those spiders and that means good old mark-up pages.

Well about five days later and many wasted hours I think I’ve cracked how to do it. Putting aside the fact that datafeeds don’t only come in one format, I have found out with my basic PHP skills how to put the datafeed into a database and then out again on to a good old html page. Now I’ve just got to make the page look nice.

Before I embarked on this however I downloaded a free program from www.affilistore.com, a program where you can set up an affiliate based store for nothing. Although I found it excellent in principle I was too lazy to get the instructions and learn how to use it properly. However I came across a great instructional video over at a guy called Stephen Pratley’s blog, in which he explains all in detail. Check it out here,  http://www.stephenpratley.com/building-an-affilistore-travel-site-4-building-the-site.  It’s really good.

As for me I probably won’t be using affilistore partly because I’m too tight to pay out for the license to have the copyright message removed (which is optional), but mainly because I like to do these things myself.

But for anyone else who doesn’t want the hours of frustration and self inflicted head pain in doing this, I think affilistore is great.