Since I announced my retirement from teaching the buying & selling websites training class, I’ve been hard at work on my 2 new business ideas.

The two new businesses I’m starting are in the travel market and the toys market, neither of which I have any experience with, but are both proven and profitable markets to get into.

While doing my market research, I decided I needed to find partners who were both smarter than me, and have lots of experience in these markets.

I met with a couple guys yesterday to discuss my business ideas and realized something very important.

The main reason I’ve been so successful in my internet businesses is because I always keep them SIMPLE.

I never realized this until talking with these partners. I basically gave them a rundown of what I wanted to do, which was very simple and straight forward. It took all of 5 minutes to explain the entire business plan to them.

Almost immediately, the guys I was chatting with were throwing out ideas left and right.  Each “brilliant idea” was more and more complex and I knew in the back of my mind that:

a) trying to do all of these things would be too overwhelming and probably never get done.

b) these ideas would most likely confuse the customers and result in them not taking action on my offers.

c) would be 3 times as expensive to do and half as profitable as my simple idea.

I didn’t want to tell these potential partners that their ideas sucked because they were so excited about them.  Yes, they were sexier ideas than my plain jane version of the business, but 9 out of 10 times it’s the boring businesses that make the most money.

After talking with these guys, I realized that many of the mistakes people make when trying to make money online are because people over complicate things.  The easier the business, the more effective you can be at doing the things that actually make money. If you are so caught up in complicated technology or constantly trying to be innovative and cutting edge, you will be stuck in a never ending rat race.

Have you figured this out for yourself yet?

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I’ve talked about mentors a bit in the past and how I believe you need to have a mentor if you want to achieve success in making money online.

When I announced my “retirement” from teaching how to buy and sell websites, I got a ton of emails from readers who were sad to see me go. A lot of the emails read “Please don’t stop teaching, you’re one of my only mentors that I can trust”.

It really got me thinking…

It’s true, many people who teach methods of making money online are in it for one thing, the money. And when you have that motivation, you can be sure the mentor you are following has THEIR best interests in mind, NOT YOURS.

While it’s also true, I’m retiring from teaching the buying & selling websites business anymore, I think its important for you to know what to look for in a good mentor so you don’t get burned.

Find A Mentor You Can Trust To Help You make money online

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1) The mentor you are following should have a defined path to success.

In other words, your mentor should be someone who has made most of their money DOING whatever it is they are teaching others to do. If the person made just a few bucks using the technique and now makes the majority of their money from teaching the “how to”, STAY AWAY.

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2) The mentor you are following should help you stay focused.

Have you ever been on someone’s email list and you get offer after offer after offer to buy different products? This is one SURE SIGN that the mentor doesn’t care about you. All they are looking for is their affiliate commission, so they try to shove offer after offer in front of your face hoping you’ll bite on one of them.

It is impossible to be successful with an internet business if you buy a new training program every single week. By the time you learn the technique you bought, the next great “product of the week” comes out and you move on to the next one. You never have a chance to implement anything.

If you get emails from a mentor who offers you many different ways to make money than what you originally signed up for, chances are the mentor is abusing their relationship with you for affiliate commissions.

A lot of times these emails will “appear” to be genuine. Here are some common ones (since most of these marketers have no originality…)

a) My good friend Bob agreed to share his secrets with you on a FREE teleconference tonight at 9.

b) I just found this new way of making $300 a day, download this free report that explains it all.

c) I just got off the phone with __________ and got him to reveal his system how he makes $5000/month with no list, no website, no money, etc.

There are a bunch of similar stories, but the meanings are all the same….They are going to give you a free teaser, waste 45 minutes of your time, then pitch you on the latest and greatest money making technique for $997.

These are distractions to your main objective, and this type of mentor is HURTING your chances of success by throwing different business models at you every single week.

My advice, if you are on a list like this, unsubscribe immediately.

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3) The mentor should not depend on the income from his training course to survive!

If your mentor is coming out with a new product every single week or every month, chances are they are doing that because they NEED the money from these courses to pay their mortgage.

And if these people are that bad off financially, that’s NOT someone you should be listening to when you want help making money online.

You should only be following people who really don’t need your money because they became wealthy using the technique they are teaching. Sadly, there are few people who fit into this category.

You might ask, if the mentor doesn’t need the money, then why are they charging for the training? Well, one reason is, it’s not right ethically to use someone else’s time, knowledge or experience without compensating them. Do you work for free?

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4) The mentor should not sell “dreams”.

Making money online CAN be easy once you know what you are doing, but don’t let anyone fool you into thinking all you have to do is push a couple buttons and then it’s off to the beach to live a life of luxury.

That is physically impossible.

Anyone who tells you that you can start a business with:

a) no money

b) little effort

c) just a couple hours per month

is flat out lying!

Personally, I don’t think anyone should even consider starting an internet business unless they have at least $1,000 - $3,000 of cash in the bank that is not reserved for living expenses. If you don’t have at least this much, you don’t need to be in business because you are just not ready yet.

Internet businesses are dirt cheap to start compared to any other business in the world, but they are still businesses and have certain costs associated with them (ie - hosting, domain name, development cost, advertising, content creation, software, etc).

Compare this startup cost to a real retail business, where you can spend more than $150,000 just to open your doors, a couple grand for an internet business is nothing.

Not everyone is right for making money online. Lack of capital is one thing that keeps people from succeeding online. If you are always stressed about the decision between spending $50 for a website logo or putting $50 of food on the table, you will not do well online.

Advice - pick up an extra part time job and put all of that income aside for your internet business. Once you have a couple thousand saved up, then quit the part time job and focus on building a real internet business.

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These are the big ones to watch out for. You just have to think about the person you are following and ask yourself, “Are they really trying to help me succeed, or are they just trying to sell me their products and earn affiliate commissions from their friends?”

Sometimes it is difficult to know who to trust for advice and that’s part of the problem.

Personally, I like the school of hard knocks as a learning tool. Just go out there and try stuff. Learn for yourself what works and what doesn’t. Stop doing the stuff that doesn’t work and keep doing more of what does. Before you know it, you will be making good money online.

A lot of people are afraid of failure or losing money, but if you think about it, why not spend that $997 on testing a new business idea and see if it works rather than pay $997 for a training program. The money is gone either way, but at least if you invest in yourself and your business, you have a much higher chance of success.

So, who do you follow online?

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Recently the SEO universe erupted into a huge debate about the morality of fake or made up linkbait. Popular blogger Lyndoman admitted in a post on his blog that he had completely fabricated a story about a 13 year old stealing his father’s credit card and using it to hire hookers… to play Halo with him!

The story appeared on an authoritative news site, went popular on Digg and several other social media sites, and was even picked up by one of the major television news networks! Needless to say, the linkbait attempt was incredibly successful.

However, the tactic Lyndoman used was met with mixed reactions in the SEO community many of whom thought the method was immoral and gave the community a bad name.

Personally, I am of the feeling that the piece achieved its goal (of attracting a massive number of links) and that is the only moral issue involved. If people (especially the news agencies) don’t bother to do some fact checking, I don’t see how that’s any concern of the marketer. Also, I don’t see how publishing a fabricated story is any different than staging photo opps or orchestrating events to create a desired effect. For example, if Lyndoman had in fact paid a 13 year old to steal his father’s credit card and hire the working girls would the story be somehow more valid?

What do you think? Would you knowingly publish a fabricated story to generate links? Do you think someone hired for the purpose of creating linkbait should worry about the moral implications of the story or are results the only thing that matters? Let your opinion be heard by weighing in through the comment section below!

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I think the 40 hour workweek is a waste…

Nobody has the attention span to work on ANYTHING for 8 hours straight in a day. I read a stat somewhere that on an average work day, most people only actually do 2 hours of “real work”.

The rest of the time is spent browsing the web, checking emails, chatting on instant messenger, talking with co-workers, spent “in meetings” and other non productive work just to fill up an 8 hour shift.

I wonder who came up with this schedule for employees?

Even though I haven’t worked a 9-5 job in many years due to my internet business success, I still carry on the same values I’ve always held about how much work time is optimal.

Personally, I can get more work done in 3 hours than almost anyone who works an 8 hour shift. So, that’s what I try to do with my internet businesses as well.

Here’s how I do it…

Think about what goal you need to achieve for any given day. Make a quick bullet point listing of each task you must get done.

Next, turn off your cell phone, your instant messenger system, close your door and do not allow any distractions whatsoever.

Then, you just dive right in.

When you are 100% fully focused on a particular task, you can get it done so much faster than if you have distractions around you.

This technique is what I call my 3 hour work block and it works amazingly well.

In many cases, by blocking out a certain amount of time like this, I’m able to get ALL of my work done for the day in just three hours. And I still get more done than I would in a typical 8 hour workday without this extreme focus.

I don’t care if you work a job or if you have a full time internet business, try this and see what happens.

It’s very refreshing when you start at 9am, plow through all of your tasks and by noon, you are basically DONE working for the day.

I don’t recommend working this hard for more than 3 hours at a time because you will get burned out. If I’m a little behind or want to accomplish more and get ahead, I simply work a 3 hour block, take 3 or 4 hours off to relax and then do another 3 hour block.

Still only working a total of 6 hours, but the amount of work I get done is incredible.

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• 22 Comments

Having a large subscriber list can be highly beneficial in any online endeavor. This is because you will be able to send marketing materials to your target audience directly to their inbox. Some people worry about the technical aspects of setting up the subscription form on their webpage but this process is actually quite simple; e-mail management services will give the HTML needed for the subscription form. The real concern is related to marketing.

1. Premium placement – it is recommended for you to put the sign-up form prominently on the home page. It should be visible to the reader before the break (towards the top of the page without the need to scroll down). You can also use graphics or even animation or rotating images to draw their eyes to the registration form.
2. Use multiple forms – you can put the subscription form on most of your web pages. Putting the form at the end of the article after the reader has read the content has been proven to be effective. Not only will the added reminder help your subscription rate, but if you place forms after your content there’s a good chance prospects have already been exposed to your information and enjoyed it (otherwise why would they keep reading?).
3. Provide incentives – you hear this tip all over the internet but I will repeat it here because it works. You should offer something for free such as free articles, free e-books, and free contests. You can even offer discount coupons to your products if you are selling something.
4. Provide rationale – information overload is an inevitable part of being an internet user. Realize that your readers suffer from information overload as well so take time to explain why they will benefit from subscribing to your site.
5. Offline methods – exhibits are a great way to solicit subscriptions. When people visit your booth, you can ask them to sign up personally. Many of the methods I discussed in Take Blog Promotion Offline can also be effectively applied to list building.
6. Co-registration – this is a great way to get subscriptions from other websites. You need to have partners who will place your form at their “thank you page” when their readers have already subscribed to their newsletters. Take note that you will need to return the favor.

What other methods have you used for list building? Have you tried any of these that I listed? If so, please feel free to share your experiences with us in the comment section below!

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