I made a decision back in December ’08 to temporarily put all of my home based business activities on hold and go to work helping a friend get all the technical aspects of his startup institutional investment advisory business setup and operational. It has really been a long nine months for me and the time has come for it to end. My friend is merging his company with several business associates and they are going to take things to a whole new level. Part of this includes outsourcing most of what I do every day so my services are really not needed there any more. Read the rest of this entry

In my last post, Breaking Free From the Hype of Internet Marketing Part One, I let you folks know that I would be making some changes around here and going back to what really works if you are trying to make money from home using the internet. I said I would be focusing more on listening to my chosen mentors and avoiding all the hype and sales pitches. Well, I’m happy to report that I am doing just that. However, I did change my mind about the Commission Blueprint refund. Here’s why. Read the rest of this entry

I have been bouncing around a bit lately with how I am doing things on this site and some others that I own. Like many people trying to make extra money online with a home based business, I have purchased a lot of different ebooks and programs from Clickbank other affiliate marketers over the years. To date, nothing has really been a worthwhile investment, though I have learned quite a lot about a variety of methods for making money with a website somehow. My last few posts about Commission Blueprint demonstrate that. The program is quite informative and well put together. I learned a lot about Pay Per Click marketing and how to do things the way the authors do. The problem is, I got caught up in the hype of a new product launch and purchased something I just don’t need. Read the rest of this entry

The countdown has finally begun for the new release of Bookmarking Demon (BMD). Users have been waiting for months for BMD 4 to be released and we are finally getting a look at the new product. BMD 4 is not just an upgrade, it is a complete redesign of the product. Take a look at the screenshots and you can clearly see that difference in the preview. The new version of BMD 4 is going to be web-based and will have a lot of new features. Read the rest of this entry

I have been operating my own home based business both online and off for years now. I have several small businesses which I run from my home office and dozens of websites and blogs that I run as part of those businesses. I have had some reasonable success with websites in the past and I can tell you without a doubt what the secret to my successful sites has been. I have done a full evaluation of several of my past home based business successes and compared them to my current state of “semi-getting-by-barely” income producing activities. Read the rest of this entry

If are looking for a Google Nemesis Review or a Google Nemesis Demo Video, you are in the right place so read on. When you read the Google Nemesis sales page, it looks like it could be the finest product on the face of the earth for making money with Google Adwords. I mean, you just click a few buttons and earn thousands per day, just like that? Is it just too much to believe or has Chris done it again with Google Nemesis and one-upped himself after Day Job Killer and Affiliate Project X? Read the rest of this entry

I have decided to cancel my membership in Wowzza and walk away. I joined to check it out and see what was up there. Initially it seemed like a reasonably good idea as an affiliate marketer to be a part of such a network, but would it be worth paying a monthly fee? Now that I have spent a few days checking it out, it really doesn’t make sense for me and where I want to focus. Plus, I’m already sick of all those mlm-ers spamming everyone with their biz opp pitches and the old favorite “can you check this out and tell me what you think?” requests.

Wowzza is a network marketing site – period. If you want to get spammed with sales pitches and friend requests from every member with an opportunity to promote, join Wowzza.
I have been getting friend requests like crazy and a whole lot of messages, comments and group invites. Everyone is there to recruit others into their MLM program. If you are a network marketer, you might be considering Wowzza to try and recruit others into your program. Before you do, you have to be able to somehow demonstrate to the population why yours is better than theirs. You might also want to join if MLM’ers are in your target market.
So to summarize, I’m passing on Wowzza and I recommend you do the same.

It never ceases to amaze me how one thing can lead you to another on the internet. The entire concept of linking and networking is what the internet is all about. Although I receive a lot of marketing pitches from the various lists I am on, every once in a while one comes along that piques my interest enough to make me take action.

For example, this morning I received an email from a vendor I am affiliated with telling me about Wowzza – not wowza or wowzaa – but Wowzza, with two Zs. It is a new social network for online business people and others who are interested in making money online.

The concept is simple enough but I’m not quite sure yet how it will pan out. I mean really…there are a ton of free social networking sites on the internet already that are filled with people. Why in the world would someone pay to join Wowzza? I thought about it for a little while as I took the site tour, which I recommend, and realized the answer is obvious. People will join because they want to make money. People that are already trying to make money will join to help promote whatever they currently have to Wowzza members because they are pre-qualified business opportunity seekers.

For the most part, the people that are spending all their time on free sites like Facebook, MySpace and others like them are not monetizing their time or their pages at all. What if there was a way to make money while doing all the same things they are doing now? All they need to do is add a link to Wowzza on their Facbook page. That’s all. Some people will click the link. That’s just the way it is. You don’t have to make a big sales pitch about it if you don’t want to. People are interested in what you are interested in. That’s why they’re on those sites in the first place.

So I jotted some things down and came to a conclusion – I’m joining. I will be writing more about Wowzza and doing a full Wowzza Review in the near future so look for that. For now, I suggest you take some time to go to visit the site and look around. There is even a FREE signup so you can see all the features and benefits before forking over any financial info.

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[UPDATE] I spent a couple days at this Wowzza site and decided quickly that joining was a mistake. I’m getting spammed like crazy from the membership there. Review my Wowzza Review page for more info. DO NOT waste your time on the company. I have cancelled my account and requested a refund.
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Among the many other things I am working on, I am slipping in a few listings on eBay to get my feet wet in that marketplace again. This past weekend, my wife and I scoured the house for stuff we do not need any more to post on the online auction site. Most of it is junk that I will probably just throw out, but I do have some items that I am going to list for sure. I also have a bunch of Pokemon cards and some sports collectibles that I can get rid of, though I really have no idea what they are worth. What better way to find out than to list them on eBay for $0.99? You can find my listing by searching for username “auctionready” on eBay or by clicking here:
http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQsassZauctionready

In the past, I did a lot of research on being an eBay seller and even looked into opening a drop off store for people to consign their items through me. After I did my research on that business, I decided it would not be a good idea due to low net profits and large time commitments and overhead. Turns out I was right because a lot of companies are closing up shop. Franchises are folding too and leaving their franchisees hanging.

Of course, all of that is due to eBay’s mis-guided focus on their core assets. They seem to be focusing much more on the buyer and they make it harder and harder to be a seller. Many, many long time powersellers have left ebay completely or at least lowered the amount of items they list there. EBay continually raises their selling fees and makes it harder and harder for businesses to make a decent profit selling through their site. At least it seems that way on the surface. I am not a full-time eBay sell by any stretch, but if I were, I do know how I would work their site. It all revolves around using several ways to make money online. You NEED to have more than one things going on to make it big online. You NEED to have your own store and drive people to it using tools like eBay and the other auction sites, and many other online services as well.

The money from a customer is not in the one time eBay sale. You MUST know the lifetime value of a customer to your business. If you sell random junk on eBay, you are not a professional seller running a business, you are an eBayer. Nothing wrong with that, but if you want next level income, you need to have a plan. For example…

You decide to be in the music business. You find various music related merchandise to sell through your online store. You do some research and find out what people are searching for (keyword research) and build your site accordingly. You offer many things including instruments, sheet music, accessories, how-to books, computer software, etc. You find the itmes that sell well on eBay and offer them to generate business and get a customer. Then comes the profitable part – FOLLOW UP!

Once you have a customer, you need a plan for following up with them. If you never contact them again after you ship your item, you are throwing BIG money out the window. You MUST follow up. Send them a newsletter. A helpful email from time to time. Send them notices of any sales or promotions you may be having. Be in front of them at all times and you WILL make more sales. Of course, this all assumes you provide good service too. Be there for them whenever they need something else and you will reap the rewards.

Is it a questionable niche? Yes. Is it a crowded niche? Yes. Can you make a lot of money in a crowded niche? Absolutely. I don’t want the whole pie…I just want a small piece. Even a few little crumb would do.

Since I’ve been thinking more about getting some affiliate commissions going again, I decided to put a past successful site back on the table again and do something with it. It was a generic viagra site where I sold access to my list of cheap online sources. I charged $49.95 and had a LOT of people sign up for access. The site did well over $100k in sales and commissions back then in the first and second year it was live, then the bottom dropped out when Pfizer and the FDA cracked down on the generic drug websites, especially those using the term Viagra since it is a trademark of Pfizer. All the sites that accepted credit cards and payments (ie. Paypal, 2checkout, etc.) stopped processing payments from any drug related sites. Forget about it…

I kept the site and just changed it around a little it to remove any payment options and basically just left it there – forgotten and never updated. It still generates about a hundred dollars a month to this day just sitting there. I just decided that I will be bringing it back to life right before your very eyes. The site still gets several hundred visits per month with no promotion of any kind and the same old, static, outdated useless information. It has to do better if I work on it a little bit, right? So…look for that if you’re interested. I will post more soon as I get started on it. First I need to change the format around. I’m going to make it a WordPress site. I’ve been looking at Joomla a lot recently as well but I have to learn a little more about it first. Looks very cool though.