New Internet Marketing Forum - eBusiness Formula

My friend, Kevin Robb has started a new Internet marketing forum at eBusiness Formula. You can discuss all kinds of Internet marketing topics, submit your reprint articles and even post your product reviews.

Be sure to check out the forum and sign up for Kevin's Internet Marketing newsletter while you're there. Kevin's always got some great bits of wisdom. ;)

Free Teleseminar TONIGHT - Creating Passive Income with Lynn Terry

Lynn Terry is one of the featured speakers at the Power Moms Cruise and we're "kidnapping" her for one hour and making her share some of her passive income secrets...for free..and tonight:

Creating Passive Income: Work Smarter Instead of Harder, And Free Yourself Up To Spend More Quality Time With Your Family!

Date: Tuesday, September 28, 2004Speaker: Lynn Terry of Self Starters Weekly TipsTime: 6 PM PST / 9 PM EST

Join Lynn (Self Starters Weekly Tips), Kelly McCausey and Alice Seba for an information packed hour on creating an income that keeps coming even when you have to be away from your business. Lynn will teach you how to acquire multiple streams of income and shows you that you don’t have to be an Internet Marketing guru to accomplish this.

This call is strictly limited to 100 participants. Sign up for Lynn Terry's call.

You Know You're Really Busy Working When...

...you say something like this:

Late Sunday night, I emailed Ali (Alexandria K. Brown - The Ezine Queen) for some details about her free teleseminar she's doing next week. I like to catch up on work on Sunday nights and thought she'd have the email waiting for when started work on Monday.

At about 10 PM last night (Monday night), Ali writes back to me and says, "Sorry, I'm going to start working on this as soon as possible. It's been a crazy week."

Well, I had to chuckle because I kind of felt the same "craziness". I wrote back to her and said, "You know it's only Monday, right?"

So, she writes back and says she was so busy, she really didn't realize that it was only Monday! Anybody else have week's like this?

Please Help My Baby : She Doesn't Get Enough Attention

In June of this year, I started the Web Writing Profit Forum with good intentions. But a couple weeks later, I went to Fred Gleeck's Publishing Profits Seminar and started a new road in my virtual empire (hee hee). I launched a membership site that is doing great; am currently promoting an Internet marketing seminar for work at home moms; and am just inches away from launching 2 new info products.

Add to that, I'm working on another membership site (T.B.A.) and a couple other blogging-related projects. SOOOOO--- SHEESH, I've been swamped!

But really, everything I've been doing all comes back to my love of writing (& making money from it!), which is the reason I started Web Writing Profit anyway. The site actually gets about 100 visitors a day with very little effort...but there's not much discussion because most of my moderators and I are not active there. SOOOOO...it's time for a change. I have commited to posting more frequently and engaging people in conversation and will be be working on a plan with my moderators.

I hope you'll join me. And good news! I just installed an RSS feed for the forum...so there's no more reason to keep up. If you love writing...I'll see you there!

Apprentice: Donald Trump to be Sued for Discrimination?

I admit that Stacy is very irritating and exhibited some strange behaviour, but isn't it illegal to discriminate and FIRE someone who might be mentally ill? Hmmmm...I think Trump should have consulted the legal department before making this decision.

Wanna Direct Response? Make a Direct Response Sales Letter

You know, everyone complains about those long scrolling sales letters and I have done my share of complaining in the past. But the fact is...these letters work and I have used them for my products with great success.

Well, today I had my own experience with a "traditional" website that was selling a single product and had a bunch of different pages on it. I got really frustrated because I had to HUNT for the information I was looking for. So, I left the website without buying even though I had my credit card ready and in hand. Call me your typical, lazy and "anti-clicking" website visitor. :(

Now, someone could argue that the website just wasn't set up properly...but I don't know. If you don't lay out all the information for the people in one place, you just aren't going to get that "DIRECT RESPONSE" you are looking for. In a sales letter...you give it all to visitors and they can take it or leave it. And I'm willing to bet they'll take it more often than they will on a traditional website.

I have always appreciated what a sales letter can do for my busines...but now, I can also appreciate what it does for me as a consumer. So, what about you? Do you love or hate the sales letter?

Telephone Calls VS. Email - What Takes Priority?

Okay, who else in this room thinks that email is OVERWHELMING? We get sooooo much spam and so much meaningless email, how do we keep up?

I remember about a year ago, I read an article that said that consumers expect an email response within an hour. Consumers perceive email as instantaneous and want instantaneous answers. Well, I am SOOOOOOOO glad that I'm in the B2B industry because you know what I say to instantenous email answers?------- BITE ME!

I can no longer keep up. I hire VA after VA and I still can't keep up. If you want an instant answer from me, call me on the good ol' fashioned telephone. Here's my phone number:

1 604 773 9014

Just call me after 9 AM PST ---- that's like noon EST...so don't call before then, OKAY?!!!

But seriously, the point of my entry is...as an entrepreneur, what kind of correspondence gets your highest priority attention? Email? Phone? Mail? Fax?

You know what it is for me? It's telephone because these people shelled out money to talk to me...even more than a fax (which is mostly junk mail anyway). If I'm going to have a client or business associate...I'd like to know they REALLY wanted to talk to me.

But again...I'm B2B, I'm sure the answer is somewhat different for other industries. I'd love to hear your input cuz it is DRIVING me BONKERS.

The Apprentice - Part 2 - Are These People Nuts?!

I missed the first 2 episodes, but caught the 2nd episode in rerun tonight. Okay, I don't have a business degree...I have a double major in History and Archaeology (LOL! How useful) and I think I have more business sense than these people. They were so concerned with the little details and neglected to look at the big picture.

All they had to do was sell lots of ice cream. Sounds simple to me.

- They got all caught up in the flavor, but we already know the Ciao Bella ice cream is good..why did they worry so much about what they put in it? They should have been thinking marketing from the beginning. Ever hear of vanilla ice cream?

- Am I crazy or was there pretty much no marketing plan here at all? Mosaic had a little bit of a plan by donating a small part of their profits to charity. They were in New York for goodness sakes...there must have been some public event they could have piggy backed on and then donated some money to that event.

The guys could have sold the ice cream with just their bow ties and shirts with their charity name painted across their chests and then anonymously called the media to say, "Hey, there's these guys selling ice cream with no shirts and trying to raise money for XXXXX charity."

I dunno...these are off the top of my head. Just my wee brain in just a few minutes. Where is the creativity?

- LOL and what's with Ivana? I totally agree with my friend, Rae who said "What was up with Miss Ivana? First, she tries to pass off the we don't need sex appeal shit. Don't play the sex appeal card...WHAT?!" Ummmm....you use everything you got...and if you've got it you use it to your advantage. The funny thing is, they were all dressed kinda sexy anyway..so they did use that card, but disguised it as, "We're just dressing the way we normally dress." Come on, talk about denial.

Anyway, Mr. Trump, if you're looking for an Historian with some business sense...you can call on me. ;)

Outsourcing Brainstorming

Well, I've done some more thinking about outsourcing. My first plan is already set in motion and has to do with the Internet Marketing product review requests I have been so backlogged on.

I receive quite a few requests for people to have their products reviewed and I actually like doing the reviews, but I can never seem to get the time to do them all. I really hate disappointing the product owners when I have good intentions to review the products quickly, but sometimes it takes me FOREVER. :(

Well, I was thinking of getting an Admin-type person to help me with this, but wasn't sure that was the best fit. Then a good online friend of mine just happens to pop me an email about something TOTALLY unrelated and I had a sudden epiphany. This person also does Internet marketing product reviews and may need more products to review.

So, I ask him if he would manage the correspondence and provide me a point form review of the various products. In return, he gets free product and the ability to write his own reviews for his own website. What an awesome fit and a terrific solution to my problem...and beneficial for him too. He wrote back and said yes...and really, I should be emailing him the details, instead of sitting here and yapping about it. But I thought I'd share the story. I think it illustrates the need for creative thinking, but even more it shows the importance of building online relationships.

Thanks my friend! It's past my bedtime, but I'll email you all the details in the morning.

Outsourcing - Paying or Profit Sharing?

About 6 -8 months ago, I had a pretty good team of helpers and my business was pretty low maintenance. Well, a few of my "helpers" didn't work out and I was kind of jaded by the experience. Nothing terrible happened...nobody stole my millions (HA HA) or anything like that, but it just didn't work out. So, I've been dreading finding more people.

But over the weekend while at the Women's Web Workshop, I realized that things were spinning out of control for me again...and I NEED help. I haven't done my bookkeeping this year and I am so behind on everything. So, once again, I need to build that team of helpers.

Here's my problem and I'd love your input. I still have a few key partners in my business that have worked out tremendously well, but these have all been profit-sharing ventures. It seems that every time I pay someone hourly, they flake out on me. I guess working for the same pay all the time is not very fun...I know that because I used to do it...and perhaps, working hard to make more money is more motivating. I don't really know.

Anyway, I am going back to building my team of people to help me and want to focus on doing this through profit sharing. Of course, some tasks will have to paid per hour or per piece, but I'd like to avoid that if possible. Has anyone else experienced this unusual phenomena?

So, What Do I Do with the Money?

I have a confession to make. I think it was something I knew all along, but didn't realize it until I attended the Women's Web Workshop in Denver this past weekend. Here goes the confession:

I have been so proud of myself because I know how to MAKE money online, but here's my problem: I don't know what to DO with my money once I get it. As a result, for the past 2 years I've just been spending that money....and not spending wisely. :(

I am so glad that Barbara Drazga invited Loral Langemeier of LiveOutLoud.com to talk and shake some sense into me. Loral is an inspirational single mom who made her first million dollars while she was pregnant with her first son. Man, if I made a million dollars, I'd probably spend it! But Loral showed me how NOT to do that and gave some pretty awesome tips on how to get more out of the money I already have. I have purchased her "Building Your Wealth Cycles" and look forward to getting my mind and finances in order.

How's your bank book doing?

2004 Daily $$$$ Goal - Met Twice in One Week

A few weeks back, based on the advice I received from John Reese, I set a very concrete daily financial goal for me to achieve by the end of 2004. It's one thing to say, you want to make XXXX dollars per year, but when you break it down to a daily amount it is so much more concrete and easier to gauge your progress.

Well, I'm pleased to announce that I have surpassed that daily goal I set for myself twice this week. If I can do it twice in one week, why not every day? I am so thrilled and can see that I will certainly reach my goal by the end of the year.

So, how about you? You have financial goals, right? Is it $10, 000 per year? Is it $250,000 per year? Remember, there are 365 days per year and the Internet is open 24/7...break it down and see what your daily financial goal is? I know you can get there. :)

Juice Boosted Scam - An Interesting Way to Get the Word Out

Well, I was checking my blog stats and I saw I was getting referrals from a couple eBay auctions. VERY WEIRD! So, I checked them out and it was somebody who set up an auction just to inform people about the Juice Boosted scam I spoke about a little while back (well the owner of the auction mentions that he sells broadband too, so there are ulterior motives too, but that's okay with me!).

Check it out:
Juice Boosted Scam Auction

Wonder if eBay will let the auction run it's course.