Archive for September, 2007

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

It never ceases to amaze me the number of calls that I receive from network marketers about their newest juice or great gifting program. When I ask them how much money they are making they always fail to give an answer. The reason is because they are not making any! For the most part they are new sheeples to MLM and they have been convinced that they should buy leads and make calls and make sure their Autoship does not fail.

Chances are they have a sponsor that is doing well somewhere above them and they see the glitter and get the “Deer in the Headlights” look about them as they start dialing for dollars. Just follow the plan and you cannot fail is the Mantra. After 30-120 days of this they usually give up. Why? They are just on the verge of making it big says their sponsor, you just need to buy more leads from my supplier and keep dialing. “Some Will, Some Wont, So What” and “You are getting your no’s out of the way” they are told just keep it up.

The reason they give up is most people don’t want what they are selling and no amount of powerselling is going to build a committed organization, for every 100 that sign up after hearing the dance 99 are cone in 90 days. That is the exact reason I don’t pursue these activities. To much energy for such little return.

I rather sell what people are looking for, that is what I like about selling products using Search Engines as my dialing for dollars. No personal rejection, no people getting mad because I caught them at supper time, just clicks in time. The more clicks I get the more money I make.and people click without me having to talk to them or persuading them through strong arm tactics. My selling is still via my thoughts as what I put on the web is there for them to see.

Some like it some don’t. Some buy many don’t. Who cares? I don’t.

I just know through various levels of effort on my part my income can rise or fall via my online efforts and is not predicate on how many people I can recruit to sell Pills, Potions and Autoships.

Does that mean I am not a social person? I don’t know I enjoy talking with other like minded people and saving sheeples. Networking is fun and rewarding, network marketing is expending a lot of energy and relying on others to make it happen for you.

Screw the system I will follow my own!

Stats, Heat Map, Search Volume, EPM, EPC and the list goes on. How many times a day do you find yourself checking these things?

It can be a never ending cycle and it results in a zero income producing activity if you find yourself constantly checking stats. Don’t get me wrong stats are very important and should be monitored, but how often? Today I found a nice surprise as I was cruising through my affiliate networks and it got me stuck on checking stats for well over 3 hours today instead of creating content for my network and starting on two new projects and completely ignoring a consulting project! So now I must play catch up until the wee hours.

The reason I do this is for the money and keeping live updated content in my networks is crucial in keeping SERP rankings in my niches. So spending three hours running through stats just to pat myself on the back was a meaningless activity that produced no income or one step closer to completing a project.

What am I going to do to correct this problem? Schedule stat checking time and stick to it!! That is the only answer I can think of. I have daily goals and plans and will now just incorporate stat checking into the plan instead of the random click over. If you have ever had this problem I would love to hear about it and what you did to get around it!!

I have seen Internet Marketers from all walks of life and countries around the world be successful and fail at Internet Marketing. Definitions of success vary and only you can determine your personal definition of success. My personal goals will differ from yours. So failure is in the eye of the beholder, I look at personal failures as one step closer to success in business and life.

Ok, I promised a list so lets me get to it:

1. Lack of Goals - Many people attempt to make money online without having a goal to shoot for. They start projects without the end result in mind and defining their successes at given intervals.
2. Lack of Work Ethic - People see the TV commercials, online advertising and personal testimonials of how easy it is to make money online. What those mediums do is attract lazy people and separate them from their money, because you can not teach work ethic to a sloth.
3. Believing that Making Money Online is Automatic - People looking to make money online are looking for the Magic Button to press and fill their bank account. I have seen so many different Automatic programs come an go over the years it is unreal. AutoSurfs and HYIPs come to mind, those types of programs cater to people that have problems with #2
4. Being Sheeple - Following the heard and the system and believing everything they are told by program owners and their supporting cheerleaders, believing the “Wealth of Knowledge” that is being shared is only for their benefit and the benefit of the imaginary team. Team Building is very important if you are involved in MLM and Affiliate Membersites and that is your chosen niche.
5. Not looking for other Niches to pursue - How many niches are you involved in? Me personally several. My goal by the end of the year is to be marketing in 10 different niches and build a membersite. Only one of these projects will cater to the “Make Money Niche” and even then it will have applications outside of that Niche. Why would you want to devote all of your time to a saturated niche?
6. Not learning from their mistakes - I don’t know how many people lost thousands of dollar in the Auto Surf debacle and continue to chase other pyramid schemes. If you can’t learn by losing money and reputation what can you learn from? Personally I feel that is a maturity issue to keep making the same mistakes expecting different results and the definition of insanity. A mistake I made recently was using a mass content generator without changing the “footprint” of the output on a subdomain of one of my primary sites. Not only did the subdomain get deindexed by Google so did the primary domain. I will never make that mistake again.
7. Seeking Instant Gratification - Too often just as they reach the tipping point people stop. A lot of what it takes to create a business happens before the success starts. If you are creating your own content to market affiliate products remember what you do today will be here for years to come. Keep plugging!!
8. Lack of Focus -Trying to be involved in to many things at one time. I know this sounds contradictory to number 5, in reality it is not. I would not work on 10 different niches at once. I would work on developing online property and research for only one niche at a time. If you do the proper research, keyword targeting, SEO activities onsite and off, linking strategies, site promotion and network development without outsourcing any part of the process it will take a full month at 40 hours per week to launch a niche marketing campaign using the formula I use. No I am not going to tell you the niches in my cross hairs, don’t ask! Why invite competition? Anything after that original output is maintenance capped at two hours a week and part of weekly goals. See number 1.
9. Lack of Education - There is a learning curve each time you do something new. Complete that education and then start on the next item. When I first started I thought .php was a document format like PDF and a FTP client would be something I could use to swap MP3’s and movies with. I also got started out with my first Internet connection as AOL via a long distance dial in number. If you don’t know how to do something there is an amazing site called Google.com that will help you find what you need or make contacts and ask for help at many of the forums out there or pick up the phone and say “I don’t understand” There are more people willing to help you than hurt you if you seek knowledge.
   
10. Lack of Action - The art of “Gettin’ ready to get ready” is a career for some. Too many people are always trying to learn everything they need to know before they start. Action and applying what you learn as you learn it is key. Even bad actions that you learn from are better than doing nothing at all. If you feel that you can improve on what someone else is doing give it a shot. The worse thing that would happen is it does not work. Just think if your were in the major leagues and your batting average was .345 that means that over 65% of the time you don’t get a hit, but you still would be a millionaire.

This list is no specific order because people give up due to a cumulation of things not just one specific action or inaction. Just don’t be a habitual sheeple searching for the green meadow following the direction of the Shepard. Get off your ass and do something anything and start to think out of the box for yourself. You don’t need to know how to rebuild a motor to drive a car no more than you need to know how to code .php to build a website to market your services or affiliate products.

Please feel free to add to this list and subscribe to My RSS Feed. Even if you don’t agree with me I would like to hear your thoughts and opinions.

Build Your List

I should probably stop right there. Using traffic exchanges to build your list and brand yourself is the number one best use of them. In the past when I was real active in a member program I used traffic exchanges as a primary way to generate referrals for the member program. Even then I did not click the exchanges other than the occasional test to see what the competition was up to.

I was able to generate a massive amount of “credits” using a system that many call “The Traffic Laundry”. I was using this type of system even before I knew that there was a member site geared around the concept. I am not sure how much value it would bring today. It was still leveraging my time to utilize traffic exchanges.

Unfortunately the average “clicker” at traffic exchanges are doing so because some “Program Owner” convinces people to drive traffic for their downline builder program to build referrals in other traffic exchanges and program components. This in theory is a good idea it does give a clicker a direction of purpose and can build downlines in traffic exchanges and member programs.

What is the personal cost of these types of activities? Using the example in article one of this series 10 hours a week of clicking traffic exchanges cost the clicker $58.50 if they value their time at minimum wage. Are the results that you receive from this activity worth $58.50? They can be if you have a way to capture the lead and have a direct marketing plan set out. It can be worth even more than this if you think of the outcome prior to the activity. Unfortunately most new online marketers utilizing traffic exchanges don’t even have an end result in mind they blindly follow the advice of program owners and listen to the cheerleaders. It fosters a community of Sheeples that blindly follow the heard.

Fire-Ready-Aim

How dumb does that look? We all know that it should be Ready Aim Fire. How many times have you heard follow the system and everything will be ok? Following the system does have its benefits, but whose system you gonna follow? If you are not following your own system and following someone else’s you are making a huge mistake. There is nothing wrong with taking from someone else’s game plan and adapting it to your own with your goals in mid first. Let’s face it you are doing the clicking and the grunt work don’t you think you should receive the most benefit and not the program owner?

I know not everyone entering the online marketing arena can afford to spend money on advertising to offset the cost of their time. I also know that traffic exchanges can be a valuable tool if used properly with the end result in mind. If you are happy building other peoples list and building their business and not your own keep driving traffic to referral URLs and clicking mindlessly. If you want to build your business subscribe to My RSS Feed and stay updated on ways to build your own business. It does not matter to me of your decision because I will make money online regardless.

Part One - Part Three - Available on 9/18/07

Part One in a series

Many people are members of Traffic Exchanges and think that they are the be all end all of website promotion. For certain niches that is correct.

Niches worth targeting in Traffic Exchanges:

• Traffic Exchanges - If you are opening a new traffic exchange and want to get the word out there is no better place to promote it than on other traffic exchanges. Using a referral url in a traffic to build a downline in traffic exchanges is a waste of time.
• Make Money Products - Many people use traffic exchanges to drive traffic to a make money opportunity or member program. Unless you own the program this is akin to promoting traffic exchange referral urls in a traffic exchange.
• Marketing tools - If you use marketing tools to promote your online business and you wish to promote them to others for referral commissions a traffic exchange may be a good place to market these products if you can do it in a unique fashion.
• Your own products or services - This is the reason that the average traffic exchange user should be there to drive people to their own list. Lead with your first then promote your products and services, unless you have a totally unique product then lead with the product first.
• List Building - The most Important Use of a Traffic Exchange.

Most people that use traffic exchanges do so because they have joined some member program that has a downline builder and are told to drive traffic to their referral url for the program and back end traffic exchange referrals. This is an admirable way to utilize traffic exchanges to build the list of the program owner, with your return on time negligible and the most benefit going to the program owner.

Yep I said it. Using traffic exchanges to build referrals in a member program such as 10Khits, Mpam, Yorgoo, Traffic Hoopla or any other downline builder is an abuse of your efforts in using a traffic exchange. By using traffic exchanges for this purpose you are wasting your time and efforts. All you are doing is building the list of the program owner with them relieving the most benefit. They are using your labors to build their list.

I have heard and preached the argument for downline integrity. I know one person who preaches this endlessly and is even vocal about it in various forums and takes a soap box mentality about it. To me when I hear this diatribe I chuckle because I have personal first hand knowledge of him violating this trust he holds so dear. I now personally don’t care about downlines in any program nor will join any program where that is the key component.

Does this mean I don’t use traffic exchange? I currently don’t have any active campaigns on traffic exchanges at this time, but I am working on a traffic exchange marketing blitz in the near future. Will I click to advertise this blitz? Absolutely not. I will either buy traffic or offer a co-op to traffic exchange owners, but clicking traffic exchanges is a poor use use of ones time if you want to be a successful online marketer.

You need to look at it like this. If you spend 2 hours a day 5 days a week clicking traffic exchange you have used 10 hours of your time that can be better used to make money. Multiply that time by 52 weeks a year and you have used 520 hours of your time clicking looking at advertising. If you put a value on your time and using minimum wage in the USA your weekly traffic exchange task at two hours a day is costing you 10 x $5.85 = $58.50 a week multiply that times 52 weeks for $3042 a year!

I can buy a lot of advertising using these rates for $250 a month you can get the word out a lot faster about your product or service than by clicking for credits. Plus you should value your time at more than minimum wage I rate my time at $40 an hour and at this rate I look at ROI on my activities. If I spend $40 I need to make a return of $160 for my efforts for it to be justified.

So using the example above of $58.50 as a weekly value of your time at two hours a day clicking traffic exchanges if you are not making at least $117 dollars a week for your efforts you are wasting your time! See you have already spent $58.50 in your lost time that is gone. Even if you make $58.50 for your efforts all you have done is broke even you really have not made any money. You can get a job at McDonald’s that will pay you better than that. If you are not doubling your investment for your time or are valuing your time at $5.85 an hour you probably are not serious about making money online.

Part Two  Subscribe to My RSS Feed to Monitor this Series.

If you have ever struggled getting traffic to a new blog here is a cure.

Syndicate your content across the Blogsphere with a new type of Traffic Exchange.

If you will look in the bottom right side bar you will see other blog headlines from other bloggers. This is a widget you can add to your blog and earn your spot on other peoples blogs.

It works just like a traffic exchange for every visit to your blog page you will earn credits for your headlines to appear on other blogs in the network. This will probably not drive a lot of traffic but it will drive some if you use a catchy headline. I would not recommend this service as a primary source of blog promotion but it should be used as a cog in the wheel of your promotion tactics.

You will also earn credits for people you refer through ten levels. Give it a try it is free and the widget will actually spice up your site theme.

Syndicate Your Blog Today.

Making money on the Internet is not a difficult task. Many people find online marketing through different programs, most a derivative of Multi Level Marketing combined with a membersite. There are a few people who make a lot of money by owning membersites. Currently I am in the process of creating a membersite as well with an affiliate program.

This is a huge undertaking and will require many hours of hard work and promotion. It will be geared to teaching people how to use blogs to monetize their time online or get the word out about a specific topic, without all of the slam bam hard marketing you see in the typical membersite format.

I am personally torn in this decision to create a membersite, as I generally don’t like the business model of membersites. I am not talking about the model from the site owners perspective, but the model for the end user. Most membersites are geared towards building a list for the site owner on the backs of the members and utilizing that list for their marketing agenda.

As an online affiliate I earn well over $5000 per month with blogging platforms and have seen word of mouth spread the news very virally. The new membersite will be geared to helping people create blogs that they own and monetize and reap all of the rewards and not share their work or readership with me unless they choose to through the affiliate program. One of the biggest downfalls of membersites I have seen is that people buy in to a program that encourages them to recruit others and build the list of the program owner without receiving real personal benefit unless they recruit others like a mad man.

My goal with the new site will be to teach others how to create their own blogs to utilize for niche affiliate marketing or spreading the word about a passionate subject for the user. If they choose to bring others into the training that is their choice and they will be compensated for their efforts, but the emphasis will be on educating the user and teaching them to think outside of the box and do their own thing versus following the heard into the latest greatest pre-launch product.

Consistent work on personal online properties is the true key to success to making money online. If you own it then nobody can take it away from you. Making money online without owning a website is akin to walking across the desert without shoes. It can be done but it is difficult and painful and when it is all said and done you wonder why you even tried. There is nothing wrong with promoting other peoples products but your first goal should be in promoting yourself, your website and your list. Once that becomes your first goal the money you can earn becomes unlimited and you can truly call yourself a successful online marketer.

Paul Rushing