This is another one of those posts to skip if you’re looking for pure money making info. This is about the personal side of internet marketing.

I’ve posted before about how I made the slide from running my own offline business into internet marketing relatively painlessly, but I was the lucky one – since then my wife has dumped her well paid, extremely stressful job in education to mess about at home like I do. To be fair she did it quite a while back now and it was obvious from the first month that she’ll never go back to teaching, but she found it a lot harder to make the change than I did in most ways, yet easier in others, as I’ll explain.

Most self help books tell you to hang around with successful people if you want to be successful yourself. I think this is true but it’s not the whole story. It works because you pretty much become like the people you hang round with. It works both ways too.

 I’m a crap employee – I don’t have the right mindset to work for other people and I resent it when they earn more money than me from my efforts. As soon as one of my friends started his own business, three others from my circle of friends, including me did the same. It’s like getting married – in the space of 12 months from our wedding, three other couples we knew had done the same .

We’re a herd animal no matter how individual we pretend to be and you tend to imitate your surroundings. Ever wondered why many admin workers who start out as paid support for gurus end up with their own successful online businesses? It’s success by osmosis.

I’m typing this on a Sunday morning with my two year and a half year old daughter sitting next to me watching what I’m doing ( and pressing the return key when I’m not looking because it’s a game). My wife is uploading some pictures on her laptop for her online business and I’m wondering if we’re neglecting out children! Actually when I’ve posted this I won’t go near my computer because we’re off out for the day but the point is that our house is choc full of entrepreneurial vibes and that’s what motivates us to keep going.

We have all sorts of ventures on the go apart from our businesses online – we put honesty boxes and strawberry plants on our wall in summer for passing tourists ( we’re on a tourist trail) to buy – we buy and sell various things ranging from antiques to old tat, and occasisonally do a little import and export.

My wife has a natural flair for creative business but it would have been much harder for her to make the transition from 9-5 worker if I hadn’t done it first. BUT it’s also been very hard for her because of the people she used to work with. Teachers have to give HUGE notice periods in the UK – upwards of three months and in that time her colleagues naturally asked what she was going to be doing.

When her reply was something like ‘Oh I have afew ideas – a bit of this and a bit of that’ these professional educators – wonderful people – who had never had a day outside an education institute, either as a teacher or student since they started school, couldn’t handle it. They really couldn’t deal with what they saw as the insecurity of it all. They already thought I was irresponsible and had somehow passed some of my madness on.

 Likewise one of her closest friends still has trouble with the fact that neither of us work in the traditional way – and that’s because she’s in a very stressful, highly paid profession where security, pension, promotion and salary are put on a pedestal. Give her three months in an office with entrepreneurs and she’d change completely. But this won’t happen because most of her friends are their jobs if you follow me – they define theirselves by their occupation. Nothing wrong in thet – I did it for years, but it does give you a certain mindset.

For us there’s no other lifestyle – the money’s great, the free time is even better and we can’t imagine living any other way.

Most of our friends seem to live slightly unusual lifestyles and being able to go for a walk on a Tuesday afternoon when the rest of the world is at work is normal now. We often forget what day it is and still get people looking at us strangely when we invite them for lunch and they say ‘But I’ll be at WORK then’ because we forget how other people live.

Now before you start thinking how horribly smug I am I’d like to say that it gets difficult at times, especially at family gatherings where in the past I’ve been accused of being almost irresponsible with my family. If a 9-5 er had a financial disaster of some sort there would be sympathy and lots of talk about bad luck and things not being fair. If it happened to us it would be our own fault for not having a ‘proper’ job.

What I’m saying in a looooooong roundabout way is that maybe you need to hang around a bit more with people who either work full time in IM or aspire to the same dreams as you do. If you’re already a full-timer, spend some time with someone who wants to be in your shoes. It’ll help both of you because no matter how you look at it, society and the work ethic is really, really straight – it’s square man – and there’s not much forgiving goes on for anyone who wants to do things a little differently.

If you find just one person who’s in the same position then keep in touch with them and ask them what they’ve been up to. It’ll help your business more than reading a dozen motivation books while surrounded by people who keep telling you to ‘stop dreaming’.

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I’ve managed to grab you a deal on some PLR.

Darren from graphics Genie – the people who design most of the graphics on our sites – has put together a special offer for subscribers, blog readers and ‘friends’  of Tony Shepherd that I’m not getting a single red cent for promoting.

I’m doing it because I think it’s a great opportunity and one you should really look at.

Check out the three PLR packages on this site – http://juicedupplr.com/2/

You get a professionally written ebook, sales page, download page, squeeze page, affiliate emails, autoresponder sequence, and the graphics are second to none – header, footer, ecovers, subscribe buttons etc etc.

If you’re struggling for a high quality product then each of these three PLR packages gives you the lot – it really is everything you need to launch a product.,

You’ll need this code – VIP – to get your discount.

Check it out – http://juicedupplr.com/2/ 

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One day I’ll be jailed for strangling an internet marketing expert’

I just got an email through from some bright spark who tells me that if people don’t unsubscribe from my list in droves after every single mailing I do then I’m not ‘pushing them hard enough’

I don’t know about you but if someone pushes me I’m likely to push back twice as hard and in email terms I’ll probably push back by clicking unsubscribe quicker than you can say ‘talking out of your arse’.

 I’m pretty sure my subscribers buy from me when they like the look of what I’m offering. That’s it.

I haven’t trained them to buy anything just like I haven’t trained my wife to warm my boxer shorts before I get up in the morning or my kids to dance for money in the village square – because life isn’t about training people – I reckon it’s about mutual respect and harmony (man).

Your list isn’t a bunch of people chained in a room with $47 and nothing to spend it on, and if you don’t start thinking about them as real people if you don’t already then you’re going to be in trouble in the next few years when getting through to anyone by email who doesn’t actively want to hear from you is going to be far harder than it is now. It’s time to start building relationships that are mutually beneficial, and not training them ( that expression really bugs me).

But more than that, internet marketing IS NOT about selling.

Wooooo – I can hear the experts reaching for their Joe Karbo books I as type. But it’s not – internet marketing really isn’t about training your list and it’s especially not about selling to them.

Internet Marketing is about offering products to people who you think could benefit from them. Which in most cases means your list. I refer to my list as subscribers because primarily they are – they’re kind enough to read my newsletter on a monthly basis (subscribe using the form at the top right of the page!!!!!) and then to read and consider the one or two products I let them know about each month.

Mr Experto del Butspeak may argue that if I did change my model I’d make a lot more money. Well I’m not so sure – for one thing he has no idea how much I’m making now so that’s a daft place to start, but also I might make a few more dollars a month – maybe a lot more – but pretty soon I’d either be left with a list who didn’t open my emails or no list at all.

So when you’re reading posts in forums and someone talks about your list using expressions like ‘hitting them hard’, ‘pushing them’, or ‘extracting maximum profit’ think about something – chances are that you are one of the people he suggests hitting hard.

I’m on lists – I subscribe to stuff, and I’m telling you now – anyone starts hittmg me hard with sales email after sales email better have an unsubscribe link in their email.

 As a list member you’re a valuable commodity – so don’t let anyone treat you as though you’re not.

Have to go now – my wife needs her back rub and the washing up hasn’t been done – oh and the kids want me to change the DVD, and……….

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You’ll have to read my post on the following forum thread for an explanation of what the above title is about AND a quick lesson in driving traffic through forum posting.

http://www.warriorforum.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=229872

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Remember when you were a kid?

Some of the most fun I’d have with my toys was when I’d rediscover, in my old toybox or at the back of the cupboard, an OLD toy that I hadn’t played with for ages.

It was like rediscovering a whole new part of my childhood. I’d play with it for days on end, taking it to bed with me at night, and I couldn’t wait to wake up in the morning to start playing with it all over again.

(It was actually much the same when I discovered beer and women)

🙂

No – the point I’m making is that this still happens to me in my Internet Marketing business.  Like most of I have folders scattered all over my C: drive containing STACKS of old ebooks, software, methods, techniques and other such internetmarkety stuff that I’d forgotten about.

Now I’ve made it a rule to go and nosey through these folders every couple of months because I’m coming up with some serious GEMS. And it’s a bit better than when I was a child, because by playing with my old IM toys I’m not only having fun, but I’m making money into the bargain.

I recently found an old ebook I’d written for a squeeze page in one of the niches I don’t much bother with any more. I’d offered it as a free download in return for email addresses on a page that hadn’t really generated many opt-ins.

But I read through the book again I realised it was pretty good.

Well written, witty in parts and containing really good info.

So I ripped it up and used it as the content for a new minisite. I rejigged the info a bit and put together quite an informative site on this particular niche using nothing but the old ebook (luckily I could still find the old Word doc source file)

Instead of making the minisite remotely ‘squeez-ish’ I just added a SINLGE affiliate link for a Clickbank product that I found in CB marketplace, in my niche area.

A week’s heavy posting in the forums and diverting a bit of traffic that still trickled into my original squeeze page and BOOM – I started making a few sales.

Nothing major but a little over $400 in around 10 days.

Obviously being a big believer in small income streams combining to make big income, this is well worth me spending a little time on. I’m writing a new free report and I’m going to redo my squeeze page, and best of all I’m going to use this minisite method in my other niches too. It might not work for all of them but I’m having a lot of fun building them.

I’ve rediscovered a new toy again, and it’s great.

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Sara and I had great fun putting together a horrible Internet Markety type site the other day because of the number of subscribers who asked if we’d put our products together on one page.

 Here you go – enjoy – http://www.laycockpublishinglimited.com

Seriously – if you’re a subscriber you’ll know we don’t email you much excpet when a new product comes out or to let you know that the newsletter is ready to download. This means that as people subscribe they don’t always find out about PLR or products that we’ve launched in the past.

So we’ve selected the ones that should be of interest – AND the methods we use ourselves to generate income – and put links to them on the same page so you can have a look at them.

There are somne freebies and links to blogs and newsletters on it too.

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I don’t know (or care) if the title of this post is gramatically correct, but the subject is one that really floats my boat (man!)

I’ve just taken the family for a break from work up to Whitby on the North East coast of England. It’s a small fishing town with a history in whaling and seafaring (Captain James Cook of ‘Oh look I’ve found Australia’ fame learned his trade there), and I absolutely love it – out of season when it’s cold, wet and blustery.

We stayed on a pretty but remote headland overlooking the bay and spent the days seal-watching and walking on deserted beaches (spookier than you might think) and the evenings drinking in front of the fire after the kids were tucked up in bed.

We had a great time.

But what does my personal life have to do with Internet Marketing?

Well it made me realise that IM is by no means the only way of living an alternative lifestyle. Whitby seems to be a magnet for all kinds of hippy, drop out (I mean that in a positive way), clued up and chilled out people that you could ever hope to meet.

There are SO many people in the world who have decided to do things their own way, and live how THEY want to live.

The common factor?

Not ONE of the people I met worked for someone else. There wasn’t a 9-5 in sight.

We met a bloke who was a songwriter, had lived in New York and Italy for a while and now made his living brewing the best espresso coffee I’ve had for a long while in his little sea front shop. He didn’t seem to make masses of money but that didn’t matter as he chatted with us for a long time and made our children ‘babycinos’ which are like cappucino coffees but made from frothed milk and choc sprinkles.

Then there was the man who lived in a tiny rented cottage with probably one of the best views across the bay EVER and went out on his little boat three times a week to collect the lobsters he’d caught in his pots, and then sold them to expensive restauarants. The rest of the time he spent with his family. Again not much money but does it really matter?

Then there was the man who bought a cottage and rents it out in the holiday season for around £600 ($1200) a week while he travels the world with his family, and comes back to spend the winter in the bay because like me, he thinks it’s the best time of year. We met him as he was preparing to set of for Goa in India, knowing that the rental income from his cottage would plop into his bank account each month, after the agent who handled everything took their commission.

In fact when I explained what I did for a living it seemed that I was the one tied to work!

Ten years ago my wife and might have said ‘It’s not for us – we need security and a house, but the weirdest thing happened when we had kids. We stopped wanting security and started wanting TIME instead, and so we happily leave home for weeks, months at a time to travel whereever we fancy.

We’ll be in France for a month or longer in summer. As long as I can get to an internet connection then we’re fine.

There is no security in life.

None – Nada – BUGGER ALL,  guys.

Lightening, buses, cancer, heart attacks, sharks, large breasts (so I’m told) all finish off a certain number of people every year without fail. So whatever age you’re at I urge you to ‘work backwards’ now.

Find out what you want from life – what’s your ideal lifestyle?

Waking in the morning, having a long coffee while I check my email then doing some admin and some writing. That’s pretty much my ideal work life because I love it. Combine that with a great view of the sea or of the French countryside and things couldn’t be much better. Add the wife and kids pottering about the place and I’m in heaven. This is possible because I’m a full-time internet marketer.

So if your ideal is waking up, doing some gentle gardening, a bit of admin then running a market stall three afternoons a week, work how how to do it. It’s much easier when you have the goal in mind. Can you sell up and buy a small plant nursery?, even if you have to live in a smaller house or have less money?

Or if you’d rather travel the world, you’d have to do it as an Internet Marketer, travel writer or something similar. Could you rent your house to fund it?

Get the picture? – outrageous dreams are only outrageous if you don’t follow them. Once you start looking at the nitty gritty and get brave enough to give up a little of what you think of as security, you’re onto a winner.

In my view a job isn’t security – it’s a sentence. Every time I’ve lost a job there’s a been a sense of panic – closely followed by a feeling of utter freedom.

I’ve wandered off on the hippy trail again – sorry. But it still holds true – think about what you want first, then work backwards to try to work out how to get it. The lifestyle that appeals to me won’t appeal to everyone, but vive la difference eh?

oh – and what does all this have to do with Internet Marketing?

er……. well I got a blog post out of it 🙂

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