The question that reduces some people to tears….

Most people have an idea of what they want – from their life, their business or their relationships.

Some don’t and these poor guys drift helplessly from one crisis to another, but most people, when you ask….

….‘what do you want from your online business?’

Know the answer.

However there’s another question I like to ask, that has reduced people to actual tears of realisation and clarity

and the question is…

‘If you carry on as you are today, will you achieve it?

Amazingly most people know the answer to this question too.

And more often than not the answer is ‘NO’

I’m guilty of this myself – right now I’m doing something that is unlikely to bring me any money in – posting to my blog.

OK I’m mentioning The KickStart Course at the end of it and posting is part of attracting people to the blog and there are links to products here etc etc

BUT posting to a blog isn’t actually something that’s directly linked to me watching my bank balance increase.

Building a new site selling resell rights or starting a mentoring program WOULD bring me direct results. Which is why I continually work on creating products.

But what about you?

What did you do THIS WEEK that will result in you making money?

A couple of blog posts?

Write and submit some articles?

Read that ebook about the a new system you bought a few weeks ago?

These are all important but they’re also quite easy things to do and even easier to convince yourself that you’ve been working hard.

The HARDER things to do though – the more FRIGHTENING things – are often the ones that bring much better results in terms of money.

Going out and contacting JV or adswap partners and then promoting each other’s products.

Creating a product – recording the interview or writing the ebook

Writing and submitting that Warrior Special Offer and putting your product out there on ‘the shelf’ for people to buy, review and possibly criticise.

I have a list of things in my diary to do today.

Guess which ones are crossed out?

The blog post (you’re reading it)

The forum posts (all these bring traffic and are worth doing but they’re also fun)

and buying a new laptop (GREAT fun but involved SPENDING money not earning it!)

and guess which of the things in my ‘to do’ list I haven’t yet finished?

Contacting a fellow marketer about an audio interview, working on a new site and starting a new product are all ‘in the pipeline’.

Not as much fun.

But the latter ones are the tasks that will generate the money – actually offering a product for sale or actually building a website to sell it from.

So look at what you’re doing and if you’re fannying about doing things that look and feel like work, STOP and go through your Paypal or Clickbank account.

Find out exactly which things brought in most of your money last year or last month or ever, depending on what stage you’re at.

It might have been promoting other people’s products or creating and selling an ebook for example.

If it was go back and do the same thing again.

Concentrate on what brought the dosh in.

and do it some more.

It’s worth it.

PS If you absolutely can’t be bothered with any of that because it’s depressing, or you never make any money, everything you do turns to sh*t or just plain old doesn’t work then here’s an easy way out for you, for just $27 a month.

Hang on – hear me out before you sneer cynically 🙂

Many people fail because they look to their PAST to create their future.
Every plan they have is tainted by past failures.

Listen – those failures have GONE – it’s a new day now so look to the future to create your dreams.

Scary right?

Well we reckon we can help.

We’re so sure of The KickStart Course that we will give your MONEY back if within 60 days you don’t feel it’s changed the way you think about your online business and has the potential to change your life.

Subscribe to http://www.kickstartcourse.com and you can THROW AWAY your past online failures – I’m not kidding – you don’t need to bring any baggage with you – you can just start afresh and we’ll teach you, step by step how to build a solid internet business.

Places are selling fast – this is no sales ploy – so if you want a fresh start online, and feel like dumping all that past frustration, information overload and well, internet marketing BAGGAGE just jump on board the KickStart Course and hold on tight.

http://www.kickstartcourse.com

See you there.



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Welcome Janet As Our Admin / Tech

We’re welcoming a new member of the team this week.

As you might have guessed from the installation of the helpdesk, the number of emails we’re getting has gone through the roof and we need help with answering them.

Not only that but from a technical point of view – websites, various installations and help when things go wrong, we also needed to have someone around to keep things ticking over.

And luckily we managed to get someone who has both the admin AND technical skills we needed.

Janet has been around Internet Marketing for quite a while. In fact she’s worked with some of the big guys in the business in the past!

We’ve hired her before on a freelance basis to help with things we just couldn’t do, so she’s extremely clued up about the whole business.

So if you submit a support ticket and find it’s signed ‘Janet’ this is the reason.

A change for the better we think!

Of course we’re still around too and can be contacted through the support desk too.



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Why I’m an Internet Marketer

Not so sure this morning actually.

I had to go into the office for a meeting with a techy. The office is miles over the Yorkshire moors from my house, and this photo was taken as I drove over at 9.30am.

Mist, a bit of snow (I apologise in advance to any Canadians reading this who know what REAL snow is) and fog made it very interesting, not to mention sheep with no road sense.

I actually had to use the four wheel drive option on the car for once.

I’d normally work from home on a manky day like this but as I said I had a pretty important meeting so I set off.

 And 5 minutes ago I got a call from said techy who informed me he’d been ‘out on the beer’ last night and wasn’t in any fit state to make our meeting. 

 At least he trusts me enough to tell me the truth, but I must have pink buttons up the back of my head in some people’s opinion.

So Mr Techy – if you’re reading this – you’re fired!

And sometimes it seems as though real, face to face business has let itself go a little.

As marketers are we spoilt by being able to interact with people at any hour and get pretty responsive replies?

When I outsource work it’ s rarely from someone I’ve actually met – purely because you can’t rely on the most skilled people living within a couple of hundred miles of where you’re based. So I outsource work to people in the US, India, Australia, the Far East and a dozen other places I have to look up on a map.

But I get great work done.

If I had to reply on people with a similar accent to mine I wouldn’t have anywhere near the skills available to me (actually in some parts of Yorkshire they have one brain cell per village that’s loaned out in turn) that I need to run an online business.

And while there is a certain downside to outsourcing using email communication it also means that outsource workers have to be reliable and competant, because if they’re not, It takes less than a day to find someone who is.

So think about that the next time you go into your local shop and get growled at by some grumpy sales assistant who’s only slightly more articulate than the contents of the deli counter.

Whatever part of the world you’re in, the gene pool is a lot shallower than the whole of the internet combined.

Use the resources on the net – and this is my public apology for not using a techy from elance or rentacoder. Next techy I work with, will have a strange accent, a funny sounding name and a different flag on his postage stamp.

And it’ll be bloody great! 🙂



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My first day back at work – what about yours?

So I’m sitting here at my desk with my usual two laptops fired up.

I took a quick pic with my phone so you can see me ‘at work’, which is why my hand is reaching towards you – it’s holding the camera.

One laptop shows my email inbox and is also running the Open Office word processing software. I’m editing the latest MonthlyPLR ebook.

And of course I’m logged into my blog to write this.

The other laptop has only one screen open and that’s Youtube.

And it has absolutely nothing to do with internet marketing.

I have headphones in and I’ve been bouncing round in my big comfy leather chair listening to Jimmy Hendrix, Van Morrison, The Fratellis, Radiohead, and other decidely dodgy music while I work.

And I’m having a great time.

This is my first ‘real’ day back at work although I’ve been checking on the emails and stuff throughout the whole of the Christmas period.

And I’m loving it.

It’s really good to be back at work.

And if it doesn’t feel like that for you then maybe you should have a long hard think about what you’re doing.

Because here’s a sad fact about our society.

It’s become the norm to hate work.Most people don’t like their job. In fact we;re brought up to expect to dislike our jobs from an early age, albeit in a very gentle, almost subkiminal way – look at TV adverts and lifestyle TV – much of the focus is on escape, dream lifestyles and getting away from the ‘rat race’.

It’s accepted that work isn’t fun.

Which is partly the reason that we don’t have a mass revolt on the first Monday in January each year.

And it’s possibly the reason why salaries appear to be designed to keep you JUST above the breadline.

Think about it – most people in Western societies (although things may change this year) are able to pay their mortgage or rent, buy decent food, clothe them,selves and their families and have enough left over for holidays, electronic gadgets, trips out, and some nice things for their home.

But not much else.

It’s becoming rarer to hear about people investing for the future.

It’s becoming rarer for people to take off 4 months to travel around Europe or learn how to play the Oboe – or to just take a ‘sabbatical’ from work for a while.

In fact it’s becoming rarer to hear about anyone who doesn’t seem to be just about managing to keep the wolf from the door financially.

How many times do you hear of people who scale down their hours at work – go part time – because they can afford to do so and just ‘want the time’?

Not many.

Are salaries deliberately kept at a level where most people are just about able to survive month to month, unable to stash away any real savings?

I have no idea.

But imagine if a significant percentage of the population had three year’s worth of salary saved up.

Would you have gone into work today with 80 grand in the bank?

Or would you have thought ‘Bugger this, I’m taking a year off to spend canoeing with my family in South America’? or whatever your dream equivalent is?

But life is – or rather SHOULD be – about choices.

Imagine if a million people decided to take a year off at once?

It’ll never happen?

I agree – but it COULD happen to YOU.

The beauty of our social system is that people ‘play the game’ – they follow the rules.

Most people have never thought about taking a year off in their lives, and they never will. Because they think it’s unusual, wacky or just something that other people do.

And that leaves a lot of potential for people like me and you who are aware that there is an alternative way – a much more liberated way – to live.

So if you’ve had serious thoughts about starting or developing your online business but then thought ‘if this is acheivable why isn’t everyone doing it’?

Think again.

Well I’m no psychologist but my guess would be that most people would be gripped with icy cold terror if they even contemplated for a split second the thought of ‘going against the grain’

People are followers by nature. Herd animals.

And there’s safety in that.

But safety costs.

It costs in terms of freedom, finances and time.

Setting up your online business is scary.

You might fail – family and friends might (probably will to start with) laugh at you, ridicule you or possibly even get angry.

You might succeed – even scarier eh? Because then you have to start thinking about what you want to do with your new found money and free time.

In fact how many people go back to full-time jobs after trying to set up their own business ‘because of the security’?

This is a huge undertaking you’re about to begin.

Make no mistake this is a life changing decision.

If you choose to strech yourself by starting your online business be aware that you’re not only starting a business, you’re making a decision to take full responsibility for your life and where it’s going.

You’ll have to decide what you actually enjoy doing, and then go and do it, in the face of the majority of your friends and family who will probably say ‘what the Hell does he/she think he’s playing at??’

He/she has family/a mortgage/ responsibilities / a good job to think about’

Trust me – I turn up at family gatherings looking slightly dishevelled and hairy (just look at the picture on the right!) and listen to family members with ‘good jobs’ (‘for GOD’S SAKE Tony – you could have been an accountant by now!’) tell me where I’m going wrong.

Yeah well I’m the one who’ll be ‘working’ from a Villa on a Greek island for a month sometime this year.

…….and a wooden hut in a forest, a 28 foot sailboat, a gite in France and quite possibly, a pub.

And all because I chose to start an online business.

I chose to do things differently.

Personally I LOVE people who have never even heard of internet marketing, because they’re the people who keep the herd running in one direction.

And we know that the money, the freedom and the choices lie in the other direction.

If you’ve dragged yourself into work today, hating every second and glancing at your watch every five minutes then think on this….

It’s not just going to feel like a long year if you have to do it day after day – IT’S GOING TO feel LIKE A LONG LIFE.

Jump on board with us now – make the smallest of steps NOW while you feel motivated – sign up for The KickStart Course and we’ll guide you through how to set up an online business, or at least give some serious thought to the path you want your life to take.

If you read my blog regularly you’ll know I’m not in the habit of putting many sales links in.

But in this case and judging from the feedback we’ve received I think this is something that can make a difference to a lot of people.

I hope so anyway.

Check out http://www.kickstartcourse.com

See you there.



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Who knew this then?

So Happy New Year Guys.

The festivities are drawing to a close in our house, luckily no family member has yet killed another (although it was close last night when the last lime was used up in some fancy cake when I needed it for my gin and tonic).

And it’s a new year.

I always feel an amazing sense of anticipation at this time of year, and business and personal ideas buzz round my head.

Reading the emails and blog posts that have been sent and written by various internet marketing experts is always interesting at this time of year, and the advice ranges from excellent to downright obvious ‘BUY MY PRODUCT’!

I on the other hand being generous, giving and extremely hung over feel like offering words of wisdom instead.

Joking aside this is something that hit me when I first came across it (it’s old advice) and I keep a reminder pinned above my desk because I’m guilty as Hell of this particular internet marketing crime.

It’s simply this – not all activity is productive.

Getting up, logging onto your PC and just doing ‘stuff’ won’t bring you any money. You need to be doing the right stuff.

I love designing web page graphics. Adore fiddling about with Photoshop. The thing is, if there was a prize for being crap at it, my shelf would be full because I’m hopeless.

Now that’s an obvious example of doing ‘stuff’ that doesn’t increase my income. It’s much more profitable for me to pay a web designer (hello Darren) to do it for me because in the 8 hours it would have taken me to design a horrible looking header I can earn ten times the cost of the graphic work.

But sometimes it’s not so easy to spot.

What about going through my Aweber account and deleting the people who have unsubscribed but are still on the list?

What about a blog post that doesn’t link to any product or serve any sort or promotional service (like this one) but I just fancied writing anyway?

And what about things that you THINK make you money like writing and submitting articles?

Sure they can create income, but at some point you’ll hit a level where you should be outsourcing this type of thing and getting stuck in to something that you’re really good at – in my case it’s writing ebooks or coming up with new product ideas.

Go back through your Paypal or Clickbank account and look at where most of your online income came from for the past couple of months. THIS will show you where you should be concentrating your efforts.

I was quite amazed to find that a noticeable chunk of last month’s income came from affiliate selling, yet I rarely concentrate on this sort of work unless it’s from pre-existing income streams.

So this month I’ll be making a bit more of an effort to make some affiliate sales in various niches and maybe concentrating less on pay per click, which I enjoy dabbling with but takes up my time and last month only brought in a couple of hundred dollars.

Likewsie if your business isn’t yet bringing in a lot of money the temptation is to try  different things. So for example if you try affiliate marketing and find it only brings in $100 one month, should you try pay per click or article writing?

Well yes, AT SOME POINT, but for now why not stick with something that you can see works?

If you can make $100 through affliate sales then tweak, test and double your efforts rather than spending time on just doing ‘stuff’ that other internet marketers say they do.

Trust your own bottom line – your balance sheet. It’s concrete and real proof of YOUR workable system. Do what has brought you cash. Do it again. Once you know how to do it, outsource it to someone else while you try something else maybe.

And as for 2009….

 Well a leading UK mental health organization has just announced that making new year resolutions is bad for you because it can cause you to become depressed if you don’t acheive your goals.

Well as a marketer it could also leave you poor if you don’t hit some targets and set some goals.

I’m not a huge fan of goal settings but I often promise myself when starting a new product that I won’t judge the results in ANY way for at least 3 months. This gives me breathing space to get on with the project without having one of those crappy deadlines like ‘By 1st March I will have made $10,000 from this project’ approaching.

The next person who tells me to write a goal on a postcard and keep it in my wallet could find they’re storing said postcard in a much darker and tighter place.

Don’t give yourself a hard time just because it’s a new year – instead make things easy on yourself my not trying to judge or quantify what you’re doing for at least 60 days. Tell yourself you won’t set any goals or think about any results so you can focus on the actual task of DOING rather than watching with dread as your goal deadline approaches.

This year is going to be a tough one for a lot of people so don’t go hard on yourself – you need all the emotional support you can get and there’s nobody better than you to provide it.

Instead congratulate yourself for having the balls (ladies too) for actually DOING rather than just thinking about it or as most of the population do, whining but not trying to improve things.

That’s it from me I think. I was considering having some lunch now but after watching (at 2am as the drink flowed) someone’s granny trying to break the Yorkshire record for how far they can carry a pork pie using just their arse cheeks I think I’ll give it a miss.

Happy New Year.



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