This is the Mason World Late Night Internet Marketing Podcast, Episode 4.

You want to build a business that you can call your own, but you can’t imagine abandoning the security of your day job. You are confident that you can find a few hours a week to pursue your dreams of creating a business on the internet, but you don’t know where to start. You’re looking for a plan.

Congratulations! You just found one. You are listening to the Mason World Late Night Internet Marketing Podcast, with your host Mark Mason, building internet businesses one night at a time.

Hello, everyone. Welcome to episode 4 of the Mason World Late Night Internet Marketing Podcast. Of course, I’m your host Mark Mason. It’s really great to be back on the mic. I’ve had a couple weeks of vacation with some light duty internet marketing activity, as well as some frenzied activity getting kids ready to go back to school.

It’s that time again in Texas, where we’re getting everybody ready to go back to school. That can be very exciting, because that generates a long list of things to go do. Everything from school clothes shopping to school supplies, physicals, band gear, and all of that. We’ve been pretty busy around the Mason World household the last couple of weeks.

I’ve also been busy, because I’ve been spending some time hanging out with guru affiliate marketer Lynn Terry in her private forum, she calls it the Elite forum. That’s really a fantastic investment that I’ve made. A small investment of money, and an investment of time over the last several weeks getting to know Lynn. I tell you, she is really fantastic. I had always heard great things about Lynn, and what level of integrity and customer focus she brings to her business.

Let me tell you, my time with her has exceeded all my expectations. She’s really fantastic. I encourage you to check her out over at MasonWorld.com/lynn, where I’ve a got a link over to her new Elite Membership forum over there. You can also find her on her blog at Clicknewz.com. I’ll provide both of those links in the show notes, you can check her out. She is really fantastic, and I really enjoyed spending time with her.

One of the best ways to learn about internet marketing is pick people and business models that you really believe in, follow them and watch what they do, ask them questions about what makes them successful and try to duplicate those results.

There’s absolutely no reason for you to reinvent anything in internet marketing. The best way to get started is to find somebody who you like what they’re doing, you believe in what they’re doing, and who will be honest with you and help you succeed.

Having said that, it’s time for the feature segment, where we’ll talk about our next internet monetization model. That’s making money on eBay.

It’s time for the feature segment.

In the feature segment today, we’ll be talking about our next internet business model. You’ll recall that we’ve already talked about affiliate marketing, which is when you essentially get paid for driving traffic to other people’s products, when that traffic converts to sales. Information marketing, where you can create information products, not too unlike this podcast, to be honest with you, and find ways to monetize those, usually by selling them as direct downloads.

Today we’re going to be talking about our third internet monetization method. That’s creating a business on eBay. Now, what we’ve been doing to kind of support this discussion that we’ve been having is following along in two publications.

One is the outstanding book by Yanik Silver, Moonlighting on the Internet. Yanik’s book can be found at MasonWorld.com/silver. We’ve also been following the great report from Jimmy Brown, I love Jimmy D. Brown, he’s really a great guy, his report is called 10 Proven Ways to Make at Least 10,000 a Month. That’s a 30 page free report that Jimmy offers, where he outlines 10 different things you can do to really crank up your internet income.

Those are both excellent texts for people who are getting started online, or trying to expand their online business. I recommend them both highly.

Today we’re going to be talking about eBay businesses and what you need to think about in terms of eBay. Now, most people when they think about eBay, think about going online and buying some used something, or some antique something that they go and buy and get a good deal. So, the two things that you usually have associated with eBay are used items, that’s what people think of when they think of eBay, or items that they can get for really cheap.

That’s kind of problematic if you want to start up a business on eBay, because you’re starting off in a situation where people who are looking for premium products, eBay may not necessarily the first thing that comes to your mind. Let me tell you, that is the wrong mindset to have if you’re an internet marketer.

The right thing to recognize about eBay, if you’re an internet marketer, is that there is a massive and enormous amount of traffic available to you on eBay. Millions of items are sold on eBay every year. It is a giant company that you can leverage to make money on the internet.

Before I go much further, let me tell you, I am not an eBay guru. I do not have a viable eBay business. Sure, I’ve sold stuff on eBay. In fact, I’ve got a couple of eBay auctions right now. But, that’s not my mainline business. I do understand, however, the fundamentals of marketing that are in play on eBay and I’m going to go over them for you a little bit.

The first one is there are a lot of people there. The fundamentals of internet marketing are find traffic, stand in front of it, and convert a certain percentage of that traffic into some monetized stream. So, you find people and you convert those people into something that translates into dollars. eBay meets the first criteria, which is lots of traffic.

Now, you might imagine sort of a fundamental eBay business, and you can setup sort of a traditional business on eBay by finding products and reselling them on eBay. The things that you usually hear about are people that go around to auctions and buy lots of items, and then warehouse them and sell them on eBay. Or people that setup things where they sell items on eBay, then they have them drop shipped so they’re not actually warehousing anything.

Both of those can be made to be viable internet businesses and that can work just fine. I am not super excited about those, because as I mentioned before, there’s a lot of price pressure on things that are for sale in eBay. I know people are making that work, and you can make it work too probably, but that’s not what gets me excited about eBay.

What gets me excited about eBay is the idea that Jimmy Brown mentions when he talks about eBay, and that is that you can use eBay as a lead generator. Now, if you go through the listings, as Jimmy points out, you’ll see a lot of people that seem to be losing money making sales on eBay. What I’ll tell you is that there are a lot of things that are called loss leaders sold on eBay.

It means that someone sells something, not so much really to make profit on the sale, but actually to get the customer. They know that once they get someone to buy something they’ve got a customer contact with a credit card in their hand, that’s actually willing to use it, and they can sell things to that person again. Essentially, they’re prequalifying the prospect and able to sell to them again. That’s the big thing that Jimmy points out is that you can use eBay as a lead generator.

You can also use eBay to get people into your direct sales funnel. If you’ve got multiple products, let’s say you’ve got a 1 dollar widget that you sell for 79 cents on eBay, and you know that people that buy 1 dollar widgets are going to need the 50 dollar widget cleaner. You can also get them directly in your sales funnel by selling your cheap product on eBay, and selling the more expensive back end to them later directly. Once you’ve got their contact information, of course, you’re able to contact them directly.

Those are sort of the business models that you should think about in terms of eBay. There’s the real eBay store, eBay auction, eBay selling physical products sort of eBay that you’ve thought about. But, then there’s this other thing, the marketing side of eBay where you can use eBay for lead generation or to get people into your funnel. Those are the two ways to think about eBay.

The important thing in eBay, just like in all good marketing, is the copy. That’s one of the things that’s really often ignored on eBay. When you go to write a listing on eBay, you really need to pay attention to your headline, you need to make sure your listing is personalized, you need to decide whether or not you’re going to specialize and feature it, and buy it now.

I’m not going to cover all those things, but there are a lot of marketing options, some of which are very sophisticated, that you can test and try to maximize your response on eBay. Particularly when you’re selling things over and over again. eBay is a great environment in which to split test, because there are so many different options, whether to use pictures or not, whether to use video or not, and so forth. That is a the main thing that you need to think about in eBay.

Don’t just do what all of these garage sale minded people are doing and throw up some sales copy in your auction. Actually approach it like a professional copywriter and think about what you’re writing. Hit people’s hot points, offer a unique selling proposition in your auction, offer risk reduction, make sure they know that there’s no risk for them to purchase through you. Use basic sales copy principles and you’ll be a lot more successful on eBay.

The last thing I want to mention about eBay is that you can combine what we talked about last week, that being affiliate marketing, with the things that you can do on eBay, because eBay has an affiliate program. A lot of people have made a lot of money putting up websites that actually don’t do anything but advertise products that are for sale on eBay.

You might be thinking, “That sounds like a lot of work, because something that’s for sale on eBay today won’t be there in 7 days.” That’s absolutely true. So, what these people do is they set up websites that read the eBay auctions, and when a visitor comes to their website it lists the current eBay auctions for very narrow subjects.

So, for example, maybe somebody might have a website selling coffee mugs, maybe antique coffee mugs that are for sale on eBay. They present themselves as an antique coffee mug site, with maybe some information and an antique coffee mug store. But, the links on the store really go to eBay auctions, so they’re able to sell these things that normally you wouldn’t be able to drop ship or otherwise find affiliate programs for on the internet.

You can check that out. My preferred source for the eBay affiliate program is Pepperjam. I’ll have a link to the Pepperjam Network in the show notes there for you so you can find that. That’s about it on eBay. Couple of business models there for you with eBay, a couple of things to think about when you’re listing your auctions, and finally affiliate marketing. You can mix all these things together. That about wraps it up for eBay today.

And now the feature interview.

I have a really special interview for you today. You know, I’ve been interviewing top internet marketers, asking them what are the three things they want to tell new internet marketers that will help them get started. What are the three things they wish they had known when they were getting started.

Today I have for you the guru of Firepow, the Niche Marketing on Crack author, Andrew Hansen. Andrew is an enormously successful marketer over at AndrewHansen.name. He’s a top choice of mine for integrity and paying attention to what people really need, rather than just be out to try and make a quick buck. His products are fantastic.

I’ve got him on the phone. Here’s what Andrew had to say.

Before we get started with Andrew, just one editorial note. I want to let you know that the recording of Andrew’s voice is a little echoed. It looks like we had a little equipment difficulty on my end. I did some work to clean it up, but it’s still not a fantastic audio recording. But, the information is so great, I didn’t want to re-record it with Andrew, because I didn’t want to miss that first pass raw nature of it. So, here it is in it’s entirety and I hope you enjoy it. Thanks.

Mark Mason: Outstanding. We’re on the phone now, and it’s Late Night Internet Marketing. That works for us, because it’s 1:00 in the morning. I am privileged to have on the phone Andrew Hansen. Andrew is famous for a number of outstanding products in the internet marketing space.

Of course, he is probably most famous for his viral ebook, Niche Marketing on Crack, one of the first internet marketing products that I ever purchased. He’s also got an outstanding free ebook that’s been making the rounds lately called Crap Cutter Marketing.

But, the flagship product of Andrew’s, and the one that I really love, is the Firepow product. That’s an outstanding product for affiliate and niche marketers. Maybe we’ll get to talk about that a little bit with Andrew today.

Andrew, how are you this morning at 1:00 AM in the morning?

Andrew Hansen: I’m really well. I think it’s closer to 2:00 AM now actually, where I am anyway. But, really well. Thank you for having me.

Mark Mason: Thank you very much for taking the call. It’s 2:00 in the morning on the east coast, 1:00 in the morning in Texas. This is the Late Night Internet Marketing Podcast, so I guess that’s appropriate.

Andrew Hansen: It’s all good. It’s fine by me.

Mark Mason: I have been interviewing outstanding internet marketers. I put you very high on that list. I’ve been reading your blog for a long time. I have been asking them the question, what would you tell a new internet marketer if you were going to tell them three things that they needed to know, or of you had it to do all over again, what are the three things that you would want to know?

But, before I ask you that question, Andrew, I’ve got to ask you another really important question that’s been on my mind for a long time. Can you handle one extra question?

Andrew Hansen: Yes, I think so.

Mark Mason: Your from Australia, right?

Andrew Hansen: Right.

Mark Mason: What in the heck is vegemite? Because in Texas we don’t know about vegemite. Can you just tell me what that is exactly?

Andrew Hansen: You don’t have vegemite?

Mark Mason: No. We don’t have vegemite and I don’t know what vegemite is.

Andrew Hansen: You don’t know what vegemite is?

Mark Mason: I’ve never seen it. I don’t know what it is and I figured now is my chance.

Andrew Hansen: Here you go. Are you ready? If I give you this description it will sound disgusting, but in fact it’s delicious. It is yeast extract. Now, how that is obtained, I have no idea. But, it’s like a black paste.

You can imagine like peanut butter, but black. So, it looks disgusting as well. But, it’s mega-salty. It’s a very sharp taste, sharp on your tongue, very salty. But, it’s a spread that you put on bread, toasts, and everything like that. It’s actually really tasty.

I didn’t know until I moved that it was really only in Australia and New Zealand, and a southern world thing. We haven’t had any since we left Australia, and we often regret that. So, that’s what vegemite is.

Mark Mason: Very good. Well, now I can rest easy. I appreciate that. So, you’re in Canada now, is that correct? And you can’t find it there?

Andrew Hansen: Canada, yes. Funny story, actually. My mum had sent me a birthday present earlier in the year, and she somehow had researched some things that we wouldn’t have had for a long time having been over here. She sent me in the mail these little vials of vegemite.

Mark Mason: That’s excellent. Very good. I’m glad to know that. You know, I’m a scuba diver, and I’ve wanted to dive The Great Barrier Reef, so now I can add vegemite and diving to that trip. That will be good.

Andrew Hansen: Just not at the same time. That might be weird.

Mark Mason: That’s true. So, the question for you, sir, is if you were talking to a new internet marketer, which I guess actually you do all the time, or if you had it to do all over again, what are the three things that you think somebody needs to know about internet marketing to be successful, or shorten the amount of time that it takes to be successful, or to avoid traps, or whatever. What are the three things you want to tell new people that are new to internet marketing?

Andrew Hansen: It’s actually a really difficult question, but it’s a good one, a very important. I don’t know whether I’ll have three things, or whether we’ll just kind of talk about a bunch of things in this time, but I can give you some of my thoughts.

The first thing that I think new people really need to know about is before they get into strategies and specific questions about you actually make the money, I think it’s important to just have an understanding of the industry that you’re getting into. I mean if you’re a new person starting out, and I’m sure you started out and I started out this way as well, you start looking into the different ways to make money online.

One of the first things that you realize is that there are so many of them. There’s as many ways to make money online as there is people trying to make money online, or at least people selling how to make money online.

So, that in itself poses, not a problem, but it’s like an initial barrier to people who are trying to get started, because one of the first things that you have to do is try to sift the enormous amount of information and try to find something that makes sense to you and something that seems like you can implement it.

Not only that, not only the amount of information, but the nature of the information that trains people how to make money on the internet is, as I know and you know, of varying levels of quality and varying levels of clarity in terms of how well they lay out the steps that you need to take. It’s so easy to waste your money, and it’s so easy to fail purely for that reason alone.

To have an understanding, like if you could somehow have foresight at that point starting out, the things that you’re looking at, the sales letters that you’re looking at and the products you’re buying are part of such an enormous, for lack of a better word, pile of information, strategies, tools, and offers trying to get you to spend more money and more money.

It’s a crazy world. That may be the first thing that I would talk about.

Mark Mason: It is a crazy world, there are 1,000 or hundreds of thousands of sales letters out there of different things you can buy. You’re right, some of them are just not very good quality. They’re well intentioned, but not good quality.

Andrew Hansen: Some of them aren’t well intentioned.

Mark Mason: Right. They’re not well intentioned, they’re actually kind of scam type things. What do you advise someone to do about this? Do you advise them to pick someone to follow, or focus their efforts, or do you just warn them?

Andrew Hansen: Yes, a bit of all of the above perhaps. I think one thing [inaudible] to the way I got started that was very helpful, and I know you did the same, was to start out when you start the search for information is to rather than jumping from kind of sales letter to sales letter and learning through the things that you read there, is to become involved in a community.

The Warrior Forum is a great one for people getting started, where you see a little more of the content and a little less of the offers, at least slightly. It’s the kind of place where there’s a bunch of people that are on the same mission that you are, and they’re looking at the same products that you are, and they can advise for or against a particular product, depending on your skill level.

They’re a group of people who definitely have been at the game longer than you have, so they will have made some of the mistakes that you are likely to make. So, you can learn from their experience. Learning from other people’s experience in that way is often a lot better than learning from your own experience, because when you have to go out and make every single mistake yourself, it becomes extremely disheartening.

It’s hard, you need a lot of will to carry on if you’re taking that way. Learning from other people’s experience cuts down the amount of time that you have to spend on everything. So, yes, joining a community is one excellent way to kind of fast track the process.

Mark Mason: Very good. That sounds like outstanding advice to me. How about thing two? What’s the second thing that you might advise someone that was new to internet marketing?

Andrew Hansen: The second thing that I had in mind when you first asked me, and some people listening may find it frustrating to hear, but it’s another sort of a mindset issue. Again, this is really difficult to do, and it’s very rare that people just getting started are able, even if they want to, to take on this mindset.

That is to just approach online business in two ways. Both as a long term venture, and something that you are building gradually and slowly, and that you want to have making you money, not just in the next 3 months, but in the next 3 years.

Then starting from that frame of mind, again is difficult, because all of the offers and all of the material that you read is always promising you that you’re going to be able to make X amount of money, “In the next 3 days you’ll have this stream of income coming next week, and then it will skyrocket from there and suddenly you’ll have an ocean front mansion and a Ferrari just like in the picture.”

It doesn’t take long for most people to realize that it doesn’t really work that way. Nor should you want it to work that way, because a general rule that I have is that the faster money comes to you, the faster it can leave you. You might be able to make 1,000 dollars by next week, but whatever may have brought you that money is almost always such that it can disappear just as fast as it came.

So, approaching it from the mindset of wanting to setup a real business is maybe the smartest thing that you can do. Again, it’s difficult, but if you do it you’ll beat many people.

Mark Mason: That’s excellent advice. I sometimes get these heartbreaking emails from readers of my blog, or people that stumble through my blog telling me how their credit cards are maxed out and they’re about to lose their house and they need to make 10,000 dollars tomorrow. There’s just not a lot you can tell those people, really.

Andrew Hansen: I know what you mean. I have the same emails. You’re right, what do you say to them? The truest thing to say to them is that you don’t need internet marketing right now, you need a loan or you need a job or something. If someone was in that situation, would you advise them to start a real business? Would you tell them to start up a Subway franchise and see if you can make money that way? Of course not. They shouldn’t be looking for a business. They should be looking to secure their financial situation first.

Mark Mason: That’s right. Okay. That’s excellent advise, number two. So, do you have a third one for me tonight?

Andrew Hansen: Yes. It’s hard to select a third one actually.

Mark Mason: Well, you’re allowed four. If it’s really coming down to that kind of thing, we’ll give you a fourth one.

Andrew Hansen: Sure. All right. The next thing, and this one is kind of related to your approach also in the pre-strategy stage, I would say. That is because like we’ve been saying, there are so many different methods to being able to make money, the thing is that actually there is also so many working methods.

There’s many ways to skin the cat. There’s a lot of ways that in the midst of all the ones that don’t work, there’s still a lot of ways that do work. What makes one method right for one person doesn’t depend on the method, but it depends on the individual.

For example, if you pick any given person off the street, that person would have preexisting knowledge, and preexisting skills, preexisting likes and dislikes. So, they would be better suited to one business model rather than another.

For example, you might really like writing, like me, I’m someone who really likes to write. So, writing comes easy to me. It’s never a rigorous process, I never begrudgingly start to write an article, because I enjoy it. So, I use that to my advantage by focusing on business models that utilize the skills and the things that I enjoy, and that I already have.

That’s how I got started out. I got started first just writing for other people. That allowed me to be able to make money from home. It wasn’t really a business, but I was able to make money from that. Then slowly as I learned more about actually making money with a proper business online, I was able to use those writing skills to leverage into content for blogs and for mini sites. Then to use the traffic generated from those to promote affiliate programs, and earn commissions and things like that.

The point after that discussion was try to find the method, and firstly, try to stick to one method, because the worst thing that you can do is get started with one method, see another method or offer tomorrow in passing and kind of hop over to that method and do a little bit of work there, and realize that it’s not really for you, so hop onto another method, and then maybe later come back to that first method, because you realized it might be more profitable after all.

That’s the worst thing you can do. That’s opportunity hopping, like I call it, and it’s almost always going to lead to failure. So, the first thing is to stick to one method at least until you get to the point that you realize you can’t do it, because it’s just not fitting with you, you’re not good at doing things that way, you don’t have the resources or the time, or whatever else to perform that particular method.

The second thing is when you are sticking to one method, make it one method that fits with the skills and the things that you like that you already have. So, if you like writing, blogging should be easy for you. You might find it easier to maintain a blog than to sell products. You could blog and to sell advertising on that blog, as opposed to doing all the research and the analytics and tracking and testing that comes with say making money with PPC.

That would be the third thing, stick to one method, and try to stick one method that fits with the things that you already are good at and enjoy doing.

Mark Mason: That’s a great tip. You know, I hear a lot of people, and I’m one of them, tell people to beware of getting distracted by what I call bright shiny objects. Every new email that comes into your inbox is trying to sell you a new method, you need to watch out for that.

But, I think you may be the first person I’ve heard who has really expressed this in this way, where you should take advantage of the skills that you have and try to get a match between what you’re good at and what the method teaches, so that you can leverage the assets you already have. That’s an excellent tip. I appreciate that.

Andrew Hansen: Absolutely. Part of it is that you only, and this is kind of unfortunate, but inevitable, that you will only really start to find what you really enjoy doing online and what you are really good at after a little bit of messing around. So, maybe one of the other side note points of the three is just be willing to kind of experiment a little bit with it, and be willing to lose a little bit of money if you absolutely have to.

Take your time and find out what it is you’re good at, because even if you take that little bit of time at the start and you start focusing on a method that you are really good at and that you do really enjoy, the dividends of that will pay down the track, both in terms of how much time it will save you and how much money it will make you, will be well worth the amount of time that you may waste in the beginning.

Mark Mason: Excellent. Did you have one more that you wanted to throw in here, because I’ve got time for you if you’d like one more?

Andrew Hansen: I think I will, actually, because we didn’t really get to talk much about strategy. So, I thought I might throw one little strategy point in there. It’s really hard to pick one strategy point out of everything that you could possibly say that would cover every kind of method and every kind of person who would be looking to start to make money online.

But, the thing that I thought of, and it’s such a recurring theme, and such a recurring thing that I see as the reason for people not achieving the results that they want to with their online business. That is firstly, whatever method or many methods that you will start to make money online with begin with finding a market. Whether it’s a market being an interest group to which you want to write a blog for, or whether it’s a market that you’re going to sell a product to, or it’s a market that you’re going to sell advertising to, whatever it is, many methods start with a niche or finding a market.

Different people have different definitions of what a market or what a niche on the internet really is. If you’re listening to this call, you probably will have already, or will in the future, come across the methods for locating markets on the internet. Like using the search analytics tools to see how many people are searching for a particular term.

A lot of people think, and it’s easy to fall into this trap of thinking, that things like somebody searching for a term is a market or is a profitable market. But, there’s a big difference between searches and buyers. If you want to make money from your online business, if you’re not just doing it for fun or because you enjoy it, you want to make money from it, you need to be in a niche where people are spending money. You need to be in a niche not just where you think people might spend money, but where people are already spending money.

Seeing the term, I don’t know whatever it is, Dragon Ball Z cards, for example, gets searched for 100,000 times, that doesn’t mean you’ve got 100,000 people who could potentially buy from you in that group, because that’s such a niche of kids and people who aren’t necessarily spending a ton of money. It doesn’t mean you’ve got 100,000 buyers. You might only have 1,000 buyers, if you’re lucky, maybe 100 buyers more likely.

Conversely, there’s markets where if you look at something like weight loss. People are spending money in that market. It’s an enormous market, not just on the internet, but offline as well. It’s a market where you know people are spending money. I’m not necessarily advocating that you get into the weight loss market, it’s extremely competitive, but I’m providing that as an example of a market where you are certain that people are already spending money.

So, your goal then, almost regardless of what method it is that you’re using, is to try to access and try to put yourself between the transactions that are already taking place and put yourself in the midst of the transactions that are already taking place. By doing that, you’re giving yourself a really increased percentage chance of being able to actually claim some of that cash that’s already changing hands.

Starting with a niche of buyers is my fourth, final, and only strategy tip.

Mark Mason: I know it’s amazing to me that people miss this, but I think you cover it pretty well in some of the materials that you’ve published over the years. There’s a lot of really simple things you can think about. One of the things that you teach is just the keyword modifier, “buy.”

There’s a hell of a lot of difference between the keyword “buy dog food recipes” and “dog food recipes.” One person is looking for a free recipe for dog food, and the other person is looking for a dog food recipe cookbook.

Andrew Hansen: Absolutely.

Mark Mason: There’s just a huge difference.

Andrew Hansen: One person has got their wallet in their hand as they type. They’ve got their credit card there and they’re looking to make sure they know all the different numbers so they’re ready to type it in when they find what it is that they want.

Whereas the other group, you can’t tell what they want. Some of them may be looking to buy, but some of them might be looking for a freebie, some of them might be looking for something they can print off and give to their friends. You don’t know. So, the group that’s got their credit card ready, and it’s a no brainer about which one you want to target.

Mark Mason: Very good. This has been incredibly helpful. There are a couple of other questions I wanted to ask you.

Andrew Hansen: Sure.

Mark Mason: I know that you’ve been very gracious and not actually talking about your own products, but they’re so good I want to talk about them. The first thing I want to talk about and want to point people to is one of my favorite ebooks that you’ve released, and it’s free, that’s really great, and I’ve actually sent my readers to it, because I really like it. That’s your Crap Cutter Marketing ebook. Can you give people kind of the 30 second lowdown about what they can expect in that ebook, and let them where to find it, and I’ll also put the URL in the show notes.

Andrew Hansen: Sure. Some of the things that I wrote about in Crap Cutter Marketing is the same as what we’ve talked about on this call. In part it’s about locating niche markets of buyers, locating groups of people that are looking to spend money and talking about strategies for putting yourself, your content, your website, or your offers in front of those people.

It’s talking about how to do that in a way that creates as little work for you as possible. There’s obviously work involved, but it’s try to make that as easy as possible for you. It also tries to do that without you having to spend a ton of money. So, it focuses on free traffic strategies. It looks at then leveraging that free traffic by promoting offers as an affiliate and using advertising revenue and using content, or things that you write, as the platform for selling stuff online.

There’s a ton of stuff in that report. A lot on mindset things, to finding niches, to monetizing your content, to generating traffic. It’s a really good free report, and it’s had a lot of good feedback. You can’t argue with free. There’s no cheesy up sell and you don’t have to spend any money in the process. It’s a good one to check out.

Mark Mason: Tell me the URL again.

Andrew Hansen: That’s CrapCutterMarketing.com.

Mark Mason: Have you gotten any negative feedback from people who are offended by the use of the word crap?

Andrew Hansen: No, I haven’t actually. Not as much as people offended by the use of the word crack in a previous report.

Mark Mason: Niche Marketing on Crack was another great one. I told you, that’s one of the first things I bought, so that’s good stuff.

The other thing I wanted to talk about briefly, because it’s your premiere product and I’ve written a lot about it on my blog, is Firepow. I was wondering if you could just give us the 30 second summary of what the Firepow system is, and give us some look into the future about Firepow and give me some breaking news here? Tell me what you’ve got planned over there.

Andrew Hansen: Sure. Firepow is kind of like a combination of all the intelligent things I’ve learned about making money online in the 5 or 6 years that I’ve been doing this. It’s a piece of software primarily, but it’s also kind of a suite of software tools, as well as a lot of training materials, like PDFs and videos, that focus on how to create blogs and use those blogs for the purposes of making money as an affiliate.

There’s other forms of monetization as well. The blog is for the purpose of generating really high quality, target, buying traffic that then you can push towards affiliate offers to earn commissions or to advertising on your site to earn Adsense clicks, or to your own products if you sell something somewhere else on the internet.

It’s a suite of tools that helps you to automate as much as possible that entire process. It helps you set up a blog in a matter of 10 clicks or something like that. There’s no HTML to write, there’s FTP programs to fiddle around with, there’s no uploading or downloading. You just fill in the forms and follow the instructions and it will spit you out a nice looking blog that’s not just a normal blog, but a blog that’s optimized to generate traffic for you from the search engines. So, it’s targeted to the right keywords that you’re looking to rank for.

It’s got proper permalinks. It’s got all the plugins and all the little settings that normally you have to learn how to set yourself or the add-ons that you have to work out. It’s got them all set in there for you, so you just click the buttons and you spits you out the blog.

It takes you right from that part of the process, creating your blog, to the generation of your content, which is the next thing that’s enormously important for anyone looking to generate free traffic. You need content. You need stuff to attract visitors that you can then monetize.

It helps you generate content both with ideas and with physically finding content for you on the internet that’s already out there that’s not being utilized as well as it might be that’s targeted to the terms that you’re looking to rank for. So, it helps you leverage other people’s content. Not in any illegal way, of course, just by grabbing content from syndicated sources from elsewhere on the internet.

Right through to the process of actually promoting your blog and being able to generate traffic to it, both through search engines and through social bookmarking sites, through directories, through other people’s private blogs, and building backlinks and generating exposure in as many places as possible to your blogs.

It’s kind of the whole enchilada from the creation of your blog to the cashing of your checks is what I always say. It’s automating that process as much as possible.

In terms of future plans, we’re really just trying to add new features or new tools all the time to optimize that and to automate it more for you. For example, we’ve got a feature coming out next week that’s for people who want to make Adsense sites.

We don’t have time to discuss that model, obviously, but it’s just creating content that gets ranked in the search engines that you position Adsense ads in, when people click those ads you make money. With this new tool, it will be in addition to something that we already have, but that lets you basically create a full Adsense blog that gets updated every couple days, however often you select, with content that’s targeted to the right keywords, that’s relevant and unique as much as possible, and automatically monetizing that for you.

So, you can create Adsense within, again, a number of clicks. You could create an Adsense site on any niche that you choose as long as you’ve got a keyword list that you’ve already researched within 5 minutes or so. So, that’s something we’re working on at the moment.

Mark Mason: Now, where can people find out more information about Firepow?

Andrew Hansen: You can checkout GetFirepow.com.

Mark Mason: That is excellent, sir. I appreciate all the tips, and I’m excited to give people an opportunity to hear about your products, because in both cases those two products are products that I’ve personally endorsed and have done so based on just the raw quality of both of them. I’m happy to give you that time to talk about that.

I do have one last question for you. I know you’re an accomplished affiliate marketer, you’ve sold all kinds of crazy things, which we don’t have time to go through them all here today, but now the question I have for you is, are you aware of any affiliate programs for vegemite?

Andrew Hansen: A vegemite affiliate program. You know, I’m sure there probably is one. You might have to sign up to some kind of online store, some Australian grocery store online. I don’t think it will pay out very high, because it’s a physical glass bottle with stuff in it.

After they ship it to you it will cost you 3.75, you might earn a 10 cent commission per jar of vegemite sold. I don’t know too many people that order it in quantities large enough to generate a huge commission. But, if you pioneer it, I’ll stand behind you.

Mark Mason: Okay, very good. Listen, Andrew, I really appreciate your time. The last question I have for you is, if people just want to follow the teachings of Andrew Hansen, where is the best place to follow you online?

Andrew Hansen: Sure. You can check out my blog, that’s at AndrewHansen.name, or you can follow me on Twitter as well, and that’s @AndrewHansen1.

Mark Mason: Very good. I’ll have both of those in the show notes. Andrew, thank you very much. I’m going to get some sleep. It’s creeping up on 2:00 in the morning here in Dallas, and it’s 3:00 in the morning there. I appreciate your time, and I hope you have a fantastic day.

Andrew Hansen: My please, sir. Thank you for having me.

Mark Mason: Thank you very much.

Thanks for listening to the Mason World Late Night Internet Marketing Podcast. For more information about this program, and to get the show notes, be sure to visit our website at MasonWorld.com/podcast. Follow @MasonWorld on Twitter.

Have you got a question or comment for Mark? Let us know by leaving us a voicemail on our digital recording line at 214-444-8655. We may use your message on a future episode of the Mason World Late Night Internet Marketing Podcast.

Did you like our podcast? Help us out by telling your friends and leaving your review on iTunes by going to MasonWorld.com/iTunes.

Finally, always remember that all business involves risk. Internet business is no exception. Your ability to make money with the concepts discussed in this program and on MasonWorld.com depends on many things, including your effort and capability. Since these factors according to individuals, we cannot guarantee your success or income level, and we are not responsible for any of your actions.

Thanks again for listening to the Mason World Late Night Internet Marketing Podcast, building internet businesses one night at a time. Have a great day.

In this episode of the MasonWorld Late Night Internet Marketing Podcast, we continue with our series introducing the different ways that you can make money online. Specifically, we take a look at information products or information marketing.

We have a special interview with Internet Marketing Guru Jon Leger (pronounced Lay-Jay) and he reveals what he considers the three most important things that a new Internet Marketer needs to know.

Information Marketing has made millionaires out of a lot of people.  In fact, my buddy Josh Spaulding has just release an excellent (and very affordable eBook on the topic of Information Products.)

Advantages of an Information Products Business includes:

• Incredibly low overhead -- create content and publish electronically
• Sell it over and over again
• Sell it 24 hours per day, 365 days per year
• Fully automated sales and order delivery product
• Works well with affiliate marketing
• Location independence (work anywhere)
• No employees required

Some links mentioned in the podcast

• Moonlighting On The Internet
• Ten Ways To Make $10K On The Internet
• Information Product Success Formula from Josh Spaulding
• ClickBank.com

Possible information product topics

• How-To guides
• Self-help products
• Financial eBooks
• Make Money On The Internet
• Fitness/Diet/Health
• Skills Improvement Or Training
  • PM PodCast
  • iPhone Programming
• Lifestyle Design

Interview with Jon Leger included in this episode.

• Tip 1:  Look for a mentor running a real business; it takes real work.  Watch out for sharks and false claims.  Cannot get something for nothing.
• Tip 2:  Find a great niche or product that sells well.  Have some passion.
• Tip 3:  Get targeted traffic.  Not all traffic is equal.

Jon has an awesome product for beginners in internet marketing:

GeekFreeProfits.com

Be sure to leave us some feedback and subscribe in iTunes!

Podcast Alley is another option:
My Podcast Alley feed!

Here is the Raw RSS Feed.

I'd love to hear what you think about the podcast. Drop me a line here on the blog on on the digital recorder at 214-444-8655. Ask a question or leave a comment and we may use it on the show.

I have written previously about my support of Josh Spaulding's Internet Marketing coaching program called Coaching With Josh.  Sometimes the hardest part of getting started on something is knowing where to start.  Josh is a real live Internet Marketing success story.  He is a real guy who feeds his family working on line.

Not only that, but Josh is an honest guy.  He is all about ethics in Internet Marketing, and I really like that.  I like it so much, in fact, that I am a forum moderator at Coaching With Josh. I do it because I like the atmosphere over there. I like helping people. It's cool.

All of that got me to thinking...

Coaching With Josh Bonus -- Coaching With Mark

Josh really likes helping people, and so do I.  Josh has already had members quit their day jobs and start working full time on line.  It is all very exciting.

I feel strongly enough about what Josh is doing at Coaching With Josh that I have arranged for a "special deal" for MasonWorld readers.

If you are trying to make progress in Internet Marketing and decide that Coaching With Josh is worth a try for you, then you can chose to enroll in his coaching program through my affiliate link.  If you do that, and you notify me that you have joined, I will put you on my "watch list."

Any time you post a question in the Coaching With Josh forums, I will be notified.  I'll do my best to track you in the CWJ forums, and will answer any private messages that you send me.  The average response time in the forums will be much less than 24 hours, and if your post is answered by someone else I may not respond (no need to repeat the same information) unless I have something to add.  Response time for me will be less than 24 hours (usually much less).  So, basically you will be getting all of the benefits of Coaching With Josh plus you'll get Bonus Coaching With Mark at no extra charge for as long as you are a member.

Just so we are completely clear -- when you sign up, you be a regular Coaching With Josh member.  You'll have the full access and excellent support that Josh normally provides.  Josh is the guru, and it is Josh's forum.  No change there.  However, I'll be following your progress directly and helping you along the way as a thank-you for using my affiliate link to join his program.

Act Now!  Limited Time Offer.  While Supplies Last...

OK -- whatever.  No pressure here.  Just want you to know that I will only take as many "students" as I can handle well.  I probably cannot handle 100 people, so I will have to cut this offer off at some point in the future.

Check out Coaching With Josh today.  You'll be glad you did.

Regards,
Mark

photo credit: D3 San Francisco

It's Wednesday, and you know what that means. It's time for another weekly Internet Business Fortune Cookie.

This week I skipped the entree and had hot-and-sour soup and steamed dumplings (both appetizers).  It was kind of nice.  Less Filling.  Tastes Great.  I like those little dumplings.  Steamed are yummy, but like most things, dumplings are even better when you fry them.

This week, the cookie speaks about the wisdom of friendly internet marketing gurus:  "Investigate new possibilities with friends.  Now is the time."

Clearly the cookie speaks about the need to get to know an internet marketing guru and learn from them.  It's where we all start, and lord knows we all could use someone to mentor us with business.  Plenty of my own mistakes could have been avoided with a little help.  If you are looking to niche your business into a particular specialty, find a guru to guide you along.

Real Versus Pretend Gurus

What is a guru anyway?  When I first heard that word many years ago, it sounded like a holy man living high up in the mountains.  Actually there is no reason you cannot become a guru one day.  A guru is just an expert in a field who is willing to share their secrets to success with others looking to prosper in that business.

Real Guru examples are Garry Conn and Josh Spaulding.

A Pretend Guru example is Jeffrey Lant.

When it comes to niches, a guru has found a way to hone their skills and their product offerings to appeal to the widest market possible.  Everywhere you go, you’ll see their name mentioned in publications and testimonials.  Often times, they will have an online presence as well as one in the real world.

Fake It 'Till You Make It

Many claim to be experts but all are not.  Look for particular characteristics.  How well do they know the niche?  Check their websites and feedback in forums about this person.  If their revenue is coming from marketing to that niche, it is worth a look.

How did they begin their business?  It could be that they began just like you.  They wanted something better.  Their “guru” status is a testament to persistence and not taking “No” for an answer.

Ask them questions.  Gurus are meant to be accessible.  They have blogs and websites, do podcasts and interviews, and partner with other viable business ventures to make more money.  But they always have time to give advice to others who are struggling to get where they are.

Finding a guru may take some time.  It all depends on your niche.  What you hope to find is someone who has found a new way to market a product or service that is a success.  Test their advice and methods.  If it works, continue to follow their lead.  A guru is also someone who is open to new ideas.  They are not the only one with great ideas, they just happened to discover most of them first.

A guru can be your teacher in the niche business world.  One day, you may even partner with them in a business venture.

As the cookie says, Investigate new possibilities with friends.  Now is the time.

Have a great day.
Mark

Photo credit: Uploaded on July 17, 2006 by headcase

I hope you had a great week, especially if you were somewhere in the world where you were able to celebrate Thanksgiving with your family. I am personally stuffed to the rim with turkey and other traditional holiday food -- it's back to the gym for me on Monday.

I just got off the phone with Internet guru Aaron Abber. He had to call me because I am at my parents house with no high speed internet access (yikes) -- so I am sending this through my laptop via cell phone (a neat trick).

I have been told again and again that it takes days for a new site to get noticed by the internet and that it takes weeks or even months to get a new site ranked well on Google. After that, many people will tell you that it takes months to make money on line. In many cases, that is all completely true.

But it's not true in every case... especially if you know what you are doing.

To prove it, I agreed to let Aaron guest post on my blog so you could see just how Aaron Abber and Joe Swopes have just blown these ideas out of the water, and made some serious cash in the process.

This is a guest post by Aaron Abber of http://www.ListedInstantly.com. Aaron is a niche marketing pioneer, having earned over $323,165.05 in niche marketing alone. Visit http://www.ListedInstantly.com for more tips and tricks to make your niche sites profitable.

Derrick and I had been friends online for about a year. We both owned internet businesses and were discussing our biggest triumphs and failures online. I guess I was feeling a little cocky and I made an offhand comment: “I'll bet I could start from scratch on a Friday morning and make $10,000.00 by Monday.”

As soon as I said it I knew it was a mistake. Derrick immediately called me on it: “Prove it! Prove that you can start from scratch—without using your email list or your existing site—and make $10,000.00 by Monday.”

So, with under Derrick's watchful eye, I started on the next Friday morning at 8am. To say I was nervous was an understatement.

I took all day Friday preparing a new website then launched it at 5pm. By Monday (evening—he hadn't given me a time so I stretched it out as far as I could) I had $8,516.25 in sales. Not $10,000.00, but a nice chunk of change.

(To see a screenshot of my merchant account, go to http://www.ListedInstantly.com )

Now I'm not trying to tell you that anyone can start out from zero and make $8,000.00 in a weekend. What I am telling you is this: You won't know how much you can make until you try. What if you only made $1,000 this weekend? Or $500.00? or even $100.00? Is that such a bed thing?

Yeah, that's what I thought.

To get a complete plan on how you can imitate my success, go to:

http://www.ListedInstantly.com

It's Wednesday, and you know what that means. It's time for another weekly Internet Business Fortune Cookie.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, and I am actually at my parents home in Houston, TX at this very moment. I have a lot to be thankful for -- so much so that it is hard to make a list. I was thinking about that today and I suddenly realized that I have never had any turkey-based Chinese Food. Why is that?

A quick trip to Google to search for "turkey Chinese food" reveals information about Chinese food in the country of Turkey, but little information about Chinese food containing turkey. Naturally, my next thought was to dominate the "turkey Chinese food" niche, but I don't see any AdSense ads on that page. Guess I'll hold off on that site for the time being.

This week The Cookie has come out on the side of the value of Joint Ventures in Internet Marketing.

Hear The Cookie:

"Take a trip with a friend."

Of course, the fortune cookie is obviously referring to the fact that some of the most successful Internet businesses these days rely on joint ventures. Joint Ventures (or JVs as they are called) are business arrangements where two or more parties get together to deliver a product and share the profits.

Why Do Joint Ventures?

The best reason to do a joint venture is to leverage unique talents of individuals. Let's say you know how to write killer code, but you are not sure what to write. Another guy has a great idea but neither one of you has any marketing savvy. The two of you team up and find a marketing guru with a list of 100,000 hungry buyers. That's a joint venture. You share the profits according to some prearranged split.

The awesome thing about JVs is that you can often achieve something much greater than the sum of the contributions by leveraging each others talents. That can mean more profit all of the participants.

Three Tips For A Successful Joint Venture

Here are three things to keep in mind when doing a JV.

• Communicate clearly.  Everything from financial arrangements to schedule and quality expectations.  Misunderstands and arguments are a leading cause of JV failure and disappointment.
• Know the law.  I am not a lawyer, and I do not play one on TV.  However, I do know that you need to be very careful to understand the difference between a Joint Venture, a partnership and other business arrangements.  If you do it wrong, you could be held liable for goofy stuff that your JV partners do without your permission.  Consult your attorney.
• Be honest and fair.   Treat your JV partners the way you want to be treated.  Expect a long-term business relationship, and behave accordingly.  Care what they think, and listen to what they have to say.

Bottom line as always is listen to the cookie.  A JV can be a great way to jump-start your business.

Have a great day.
Mark

Be sure and check out our previous Internet Business Fortune Cookies.

Photo credit: Uploaded on July 17, 2006 by headcase

It's Free Stuff Friday again, and time for the Friday Freebie.

I have written in the past few weeks about how to make money writing your own eBooks, and I even published a report on how to write your own eBooks. I published the report using the $7 secrets formula for it's distribution.

But I Don't Want To Write

Don't want to write? You can also make money using Private Label Rights content (content written by other people that you have the rights to use).

To help you understand that, I have a free report from two famous internet marketers that I personally trust available for you this Friday. The title of the report is: Private Label Rights (PLR) Secrets: How To Use PLR Products To Create A Money-Making Small Reports Business.

As always, opt in to my list to get access to all the free stuff (opt-in box in the right hand sidebar). As soon as you opt-in and confirm you subscription, you'll receive instructions on how to log into the members area.

Thanks,
Mark

I have written a lot recently about the importance of mailing lists. Last Friday, in fact, I explained about how I had been working on a lightbox solution for optins using the You Can't Block This script. The only problem is that I have been worried about bugging my normal readers and tarnishing my brand.

Sure enough, I got this thoughtful comment from a loyal reader (Alex The Big Blogger):

I’m not a fan of Popups, I consider them a little bit spammy, although I’ve tested them out on my own blog and I too have seen good results. I’ve made them with Aweber and set a delay to the apparence. On this way the visitor fisrt starts reading the post and then he gets the popup. Getting a popup as the first thing when i come to a site sets me up and makes me walk away.

That is exactly what I am worried about -- but I like the idea of a delay.

Then it occurred to me that I could just put some php code around the JavaScript based on the referrer to determine if the lightbox appeared.  For my initial experiment, I am only showing the opt-in box to users from StumbleUpon, Google search, Yahoo search and MSN search.  That way, I should not be offending my regular readers. (I know I am not the first person to have this idea, by the way).

In addition to that, I have the popup set to display once per browser session. That should allow for minimum annoyance.

I will let you know how it goes. I have added some Google Analytics code to the popup box html, so I should be able to get some decent stats on the performance.

One issue -- not all browsers are configured to report the referring website. For our current experiment, those visitors will not see the box. I may change this behavior later.

In case you are interested, here is the trivial php code to manage who sees the popup:

(Special thanks to Josh Spaulding for help with troubleshooting)

Have a great day!
Mark

It's Free Stuff Friday again, and time for the Friday Freebie.

I been doing some research with my Internet Marketing Guru buddy Josh Spaulding this week on pop-ups (pop-under, pop-over, light boxes, etc.).  I was motivated to do this based on results pop-up optin results published by  Caroline Middlebrook.  She published the graph below on Twitter to show the dramatic impact of the lightbox on he opt-ins:

So, I went looking for the best pop-up script.  Aweber has something simple available, but you cannot completely customize it (e.g you cannot completely control the graphics.).

I found "You Can't Block This" -- it is one of those "unblockable" JavaScript popups with lightbox effects.  It also does peelaway ads.  Since I knew that Free Stuff Friday was coming up, I grabbed the resale rights copy, and am offering a private use copy to you at no charge.  If you want to buy the resale rights or even the master resale rights, you can check out the You Can't Block This home page.  Once you have resale rights, you can sell this product yourself and keep the profits (or give this product away to your list).

I have this up and running on a test page here if you want to see it.  I have it set to only show once -- so if you want to see it again, clear your cookies.

As always, opt in to my list to get access to all the free stuff (opt-in box in the right hand sidebar).  As soon as you opt-in and confirm you subscription, you'll receive instructions on how to log into the members area.

Thanks,
Mark

It's Wednesday, and you know what that means. It's time for another weekly Internet Business Fortune Cookie. Last night I had Jalapeno Chicken and fried rice. Basically, I call this "Texas Chinese Food." It was really spicy hot, and that explains this week's cookie that talks about a hot new blog from Garry Conn.

The Cookie Speaks The Truth

As you know, everything you need to know about running an internet business can be learned from fortune cookies. This week The Cookie has obviously been surfing the Internet.

Hear The Cookie:
"Big things come in small packages."

Of course, the fortune cookie is obviously referring to the fact that I got a small little email from Niche Blog and AdSense Guru Garry Conn last weekend announcing his Next Big Thing -- a new blog!

Garry has launched BloggingQuestions.com, a blog where you can go to get your questions about blogging answered by the blogging community.  Here's how it works (in Garrys' words):

How the blog works is very simple:

People can follow or subscribe to the blog and read newly asked questions or even archived ones. Because these questions have been asked by readers such as yourself, it is very likely that you will have a personal interest in the questions being asked and the answers that go with them.

The part that makes BloggingQuestions.com "one of a kind" and totally unique is the fact your questions are welcomed! There is no such thing as a stupid question on BloggingQuestions.com. You are invited to ask your own questions! Simply create a free account and post your question LIVE on the blog. From there people who read the blog (including myself) can provide you with answers by using the comment form.

Besides being the coolest domain name that I have seen in a long time, this promises to be a great resource for bloggers.  Truly, a big thing in a small package.

The Cookie Speaks About Value -- Follow The Cookie

One of the things that I like about Garry is that he really tries to help people.  Sometimes, he does this to a fault, and people take advantage of him (you know who you are).

When I was just starting out working on MasonWorld.com, Garry took tons of his own time to help me.  This new BloggingQuestions.com blog is another great example of Garry's willingness to lend a hand.  Pay attention -- Garry builds trust and gives people something in exchange for their participation in his business.

As a side note -- I think Garry has a cousin or someone like that who works at GoDaddy.  That is the only way I can explain how he gets these killer domain names.

So, listen to the cookie.   Watch out for the small packages.  There may be something big in there.  Check out BloggingQuestions.com today.

Have a great day.
Mark

Photo credit: Uploaded on July 17, 2006 by headcase

Announcing First eBook Now

An eBook about creating your first eBook.

Since last Thursday, I have been blogging like a madman about the importance of lists, and how I have changed my entire list strategy based on Josh Spaulding's New Age Email Marketing Report.

This caused me to start work on an experiment with $7 Secrets (which I described Saturday).  Yesterday, I demonstrated how you can build you list using other people products (Master Resale Rights).

As we discussed yesterday, that can work great, but what works best (in my opinion) is having your own products.

So, I am happy to announce a product that will help you with your journey to build your own information marketing business.

First eBook Now

You Need Your Own Products

If you look at all of the really successful email marketers, they have their own products.  It's a very satisfying thing, really.  You create something that has real value - something that helps people.  Then you sell it at a price that leaves people delighted with their purchase.  What could be better?  It's the true definition of win-win.

The customer gets a great product.  What do you get?  You get the sale, of course.  But you get something much more valuable -- you get the trust of a happy customer.  You can work to grow that trust and provide more to that customer by using email lists to stay in touch with them.  You can sell them other products that they need (and that you also value), increasing the investement in your relationship.  In the end, everybody wins (especially the customer).

You Have To Start Somewhere

The thing is, if you look at these guru email marketers, they all have tens (or hundreds) of thousands of people on their lists and dozens of huge products.  How in the world can you compete?  Simple answer:  don't compete.  Start small and build from there.

See, I believe that everyone has at least one good eBook in them.  Probably more.  The thing is, people are reluctant to start.  Either they don't know how to start or they are afraid to fail.   Either way, they forget that the longest journey begins with the smallest step.

Take A Small Action Today

Are you interested in starting your own information marketing empire?  Why not take the smallest step today?  Check out my latest eBook -- I wrote it for you.  It gives you a great overview of how to get your first eBook off the ground, and includes information about everything from finding a topic to outsourcing a salespage.  If you have ever wanted to get started, this is the resource for you.

The best part -- it's only $7.   Get First eBook Now! today.  You'll be glad you did.

Regards,
Mark

OK -- here is the coolest marketing creative material I have seen in a while.  The below flash game allows you to "shoot the guru" in an arcade-style game format.  Sorry about the violence.

At the end of the game, you get a link to a sales page.  I don't know anything about the product (I'd love to hear about it if you know something about it).  However, I think this is an amazingly cool marketing strategy.

Note that there is an affiliate program behind it. If you buy the product, the person who displayed the game gets a commission. I don't know anything about the product, and I do not endorse it. I do endorse the viral marketing approach. (If you are interested in the affiliate program, the link is at the bottom of the sales page.)

What do you think about this clever approach? Any idea what something like this costs to develop?

Regards,
Mark

A few weeks ago I wrote about the value of your time and how you should consider outsourcing in your online business.  Of course, the ultimate goal of outsourcing should be to create a more profitable company while keeping the owner sane.

I find that many people are afraid of outsourcing.  If you are one of those people (and even if you are not), you may be interested to hear about how to avoid common outsourcing mistakes.  This will make the process go much smoother and keep you from spinning your wheels and getting nowhere.

One of my favorite PLR gurus, Nicole Dean of www.OutsourceWeekly.com says "You must plan your outsourcing wisely. Otherwise, you're simply throwing money into the wind."

Just like anything, outsourcing has its good and bad points.  If you are aware of the potential problems before hand, you dramatically increase your chances of an enjoyable experience.

So, without further delay, here are 5 potential outsourcing mistakes every online business owner should be aware of, in order to avoid making them.

Failure To "Know" Your Contractor

If you ask around, most business owners who outsource will tell you the biggest benefit of doing so is the fact that their assistants work remotely. But that usually means you have never met the person you are working with.  So, the number one problem when it comes to outsourcing is not thoroughly checking out the contractor or company who will be performing the work.  You need to keep in mind that sometimes this independence can work in the "wrong direction" if not taken seriously.

Action: Make it a point to carefully interview the people you are considering working with before assigning a task or project to them. The person or company should be someone you can trust to represent your business.

Failure To Communicate

Whether you are outsourcing tech support, writing, web design or something else, you must keep the lines of communication open.  If you allow your workers to do work for you without communicating your goals and what it is that you need, you will find that they your work will not be done as you'd hoped. Assistants are not mind-readers and do need guidance.

Action: Take some time to make sure that you and the people you outsource to understand your expectations.  This is an important part of making sure that you get what you need.

Failure To Budget

If you want outsourcing to work properly, you'll need to keep a good eye on what you are spending for the work being done. While some projects will require single payments to your assistant, others may involve recurring or retainer payments and you will more than likely have some type of contract or agreement that binds you. Some of your assistants may charge by the hour while others may invoice by project or expect payment based on a commission of some sort.

Action: Take the time to figure out how much money you can afford to spend on certain tasks and budget appropriately.

Failure To Efficiently Use Resources

When you choose to outsource certain tasks, make certain you are using your assistant to their fullest capabilities and not just outsourcing for the sake of outsourcing or splitting up work between two assistants when it makes more sense to have one handle both jobs. Sometimes you can find freelancers who are willing to work on a recurring basis or who will complete larger projects at a reduced rate in order to get and keep your business.

Action: Ask potential contractors if they have room for more than just one or two jobs and don't outsource something just to say that you're on the outsourcing wagon.  Set aggressive goals and have a plan.

Failure To Be The Owner

As the one doing the outsourcing, you need to understand your role. In order for the relationship between business owner and assistant to flourish, you'll want to keep the lines of communication not only open, but clear as well.

Action: Be detailed in what you expect from your help.  Also keep in mind that you are probably not their only client and as much as you would love to have them all to yourself, that probably isn't the case. Be respectful of their time and give feedback on their work. This will help them do a better job and respect your time in return.

The Bottom Line

Making yourself aware of possible problems that often occur in the outsourcing relationship now allows your business to grow by leaps and bounds. Don't be afraid to start your outsourcing journey, especially that you are now better prepared to do so.

If you want to learn more about oursourcing, Jimmy Brown and Nichole Dean have an outsourcing course that you can take.  I have not taken the course mysely, but it comes hightly recommended.  Check it out at www.OutsourceWeekly.com

In the past few months, I have written about the value of article marketing.  One of the questions that always comes up is "what article directories should I submit to."  As you know, I follow the article marketing strategy outlined in Article Marketing Domination, and I use Article Post Robot to post my articles.  Still, the question remains, "what are the best article directories."

See, the problem is that you can find excellent article directory lists, but they are out of date as soon as they are published.  After some discussions with my buddy, Article Marketing guru Josh Spaulding, I decided that what was needed was a site that ranks article directories on an on-going basis.  So, I fired up the text editor and wrote a simple Perl script to do just that.

Introducing the MasonWorld Article Directory List

I have created a script that looks at various stats for the major article directories and ranks them.  The script runs every Sunday night, providing you with a weekly ranking of the best article directories.  Currently, ranking is based on Google Page Rank and Alexa score.  However, I have lots of additional features planned, including additional ranking criteria.

Your suggestions, comments and ideas are appreciated.

I am totally excited.

I am very excited about the recent launch (July 23, 2008) of the Internet Business Mastery Academy membership site.  So excited, in fact, that I decided to spend my hard-earned money on a membership.  I have been a member for almost two weeks (as far as I can tell I am one of hundreds), and I could not be more pleased.  So, I thought I would tell you about it and offer a review based on my current experience inside the hallowed halls of the Academy.

Here is something that you need to understand first. At the time of this writing, there is no affiliate program for the Internet Business Mastery Academy (IBMA).  I am not making a dime writing this post.  In fact, the IBMA site will not have an affiliate program for months, I'm told.  Sure, when they add an affiliate program, I will edit this post to include my affiliate link -- but at the time of this writing there is no marketing hype.  Just info.

So Why Promote The IBM Academy Now?

I have talked to you before about the Internet Business Mastery podcast.  As you may have heard on CNN, I am currently the World Record holder for "IBM Podcast Rate of Consumption" -- I once listened to 30 episodes twice in 48 hours (or something like that) while traveling around Asia.  Needless to say, Jay and Sterling are by far my favorite internet marketing podcast.

It's not just me. I recently learned that the IBM podcast has in the neighborhood of 15,000 subscribers and climbing.  It has been the number one internet marketing podcast on iTunes for years.  These guys are the real deal.  Jay and Sterling both had real J.O.B.s before leaving them to pursue their dreams on the internet.  They have both had multiple successful internet businesses (and some failures too).

It's Not The Money, Honey

See, the great thing about the Internet Business Mastery approach is that it is more about lifestyle design than making money online.  There are tons of internet resources offering lots of ways to make money online from a hammock on a beach.  Don't get me wrong -- money is a critical necessary element.  It's just that money for money's sake is not what the IBM crew is about.  Jay and Sterling are about lifestyle design -- living the lifestyle of your dreams and using internet business as a tool to get there.  Their tagline is "Escape the 9 to 5" -- and the Academy is designed to be a place where you can learn to do just that.

So, What About This Academy Thing?

The Internet Business Mastery Academy (IBMA) is a membership site that is currently centered around three key value propositions:

• The IBMA Internet Business Courses. Jay and Sterling have previously taught a sold-out coaching course on internet business and internet lifestyle.  They have taken that material, their personal experiences from running their own internet businesses, and material from their time doing the IBM podcast and made it all into a new set of courses for the academy.  At this writing there are 3 courses, with new material coming monthly.  The courses start at the very beginning with lifestyle design and justify why internet business is their focus.  Then, they move right to market research and other key foundational information.  From their, they cover all the information that you need to create a internet business that is aligned with your "Definate Major Purpose."
• The IBMA Mastermind Community. Good membership sites have great forums, and the IBMA forums are off to a great start.  There is a nice mix of brick-and-mortar business owners, regular people with regular jobs, people with online businesses, IBM Coaching Course grads, total newbies, seasoned internet marketing types, technology gurus, etc.  Jay and Sterling have set the tone for a helpful, supportive commuinty with shared goals.  It is really cool.
• Access to the Jedi Masters. OK -- it is probably true that Jay and Sterling put their pants on one leg at a time just like everyone else.  (I am actually not sure about this).  Still, they are very active in the forums at this point, and they are fun to be around.  What I like about them is that they do not pretend to know everything about everything.

My Strong Recommendation

Well, I am thrilled with the Internet Business Mastery Academy.  I strongly recommend that you give it a try.  Jay and Sterling are offering an iron clad money back guarentee, so there is no risk.   Courses like the stuff in the academy can cost thousands.  (Read their sales page -- it is excellent.)  Or, skip to the bottom and sign up based soley on my recommendation.  Try Internet Business Mastery Academy today.

building photo credit: eflon money photo credit: pfala

Are you sick and tired of writing articles for Article Marketing. Do you need a solution that will not break the bank. Do you want someone to write for you that you can trust?  Someone with English as her native language?  Someone who delivers quality on time?

I have the answer.

SEO and Article Marketing Guru Josh Spaulding has a sister. Her name is Emily, and she has recently started an article writing service.

Like most people, she has a story -- and Josh shares some of it on his blog.

Emily has done several hundreds of dollars of writing work for me. Each and every time the work has been great and I have been thrilled. Emily is fast and accurate, and the articles are perfect for blog posts or article directories. She has obviously had coaching from Josh, because keyword placement is good too.

Emily also did a 17 page eBook for me. It was great as well.

Full disclosure:  For every article you buy from Emily, I get ZERO DOLLARS.  If you buy ten articles from her, my commission triples to ZERO DOLLARS.  Emily and Josh paid ZERO DOLLARS for this post.

Emily is great.  Give her a try.

Regards,
Mark
photo credit: worak

Well, it has been about two weeks since I did a trial launch of my first product, Niche Adsense Themes for WordPress.  As you may know from reading my about page, I started working on internet marketing in November of 2007 as a part time hobby.  The goal of this blog is to tell people about my experience.  So, I think that it is important to let you know what I learned launching this first product, and how it went.

There is a lot to say, so this will be delivered in several parts.  This is Part 1.

Where Digital Products Fit In MY Plan

The first important question to address is why I am interested in digital products.  So far, my internet-marketing strategy has been to work on four things:

• Passive AdSense mini-sites following Josh Spaulding's $5 Formula
• Affiliate mini-sites using phpBay and other affiliate offers through CJ and Pepperjam, etc
• Building email lists for direct marketing
• Creation of digital products.

As a part time internet entrepreneur, I am very interested in creating streams of income where I can scale revenue without significantly increasing the time needed to support that income.  That why passive income streams like AdSense sites and think affiliate site are so attractive.

Once the sites are set up and marketed, the only remaining issue is traffic and some low-touch maintainence.  For traffic, long-term strategies like SEO and article marketing can be used in combination to drive traffic over the long haul relatively easily.

If you work hard at AdSense sites, for example, you can earn high four (even five) figures per month just like Tim Gorman.  It is reasonable to expect to make a few dollars per day from a passive AdSense site - so you can do the math.

Why Sell Digital Products

Digtal products are different, and a lot more exciting.  If you can create something digital that someone might want (an eBook or software for example), you can then create a sales page and sells that product and start taking orders.   In some sense, this is similar to AdSense sites and thin affiliate sites:  you are converting traffic to dollars.  However, there are some critical differences:

• Revenue per action can be very high with digital products.  While an AdSense click might get you a dollar, the price of digital products can range from free to thousands of dollars.  A typical price for an ebook might be $27.
• You can have an army of affiliates.  This is not actually unique to digital products, but it is different from AdSense and affiliate sites.  With those business models, you are the affiliate.  When you own your own digital products, you can have affiliates working for you.
• You can upsell.  There is no better time to sell someone something than when they already have their credit card out and have decided to trust you with it.
• You can capture email addresses and sell on the "back end".  This is perhaps the most powerful idea.  Once someone has purchased from you once (and has given you permission to contact them), you can sell to them again.  In this case, they already know that you provide quality products, so trust as high.  This relationship can last a very long time.

Most of the truly rich internet entrepreneurs have digital products as a central part of their business strategy.

Selecting The Product

There are lots of things to consider when selecting a digital product.  Most guru's will tell you identify a market first, and then build a product.  You need to do market research and lots of other things prior to launch.  Honestly, I was much more random about my product selection.

During my work on AdSense sites I heard a lot of people say that WordPress was not a good choice for AdSense mini-sites because of two issues:

• The resulting sites looked like blogs and not "information sites"
• It was hard to control the placement of AdSense ads

I wanted to use WordPress, however, for lots of good reasons

• Speed of deployment (easy to crank up a new WordPress mini-site
• Lots of good plugins for things like sitemaps, SEO, analytics, etc.
• Easy to update with fresh content
• Support for pinging, etc.

So, I did the obvious thing -- I worked with an AdSense min-site guru to understand a perfect site, and I built a WordPress theme that copied the layout of that exactly.  In fact, I actually hired out some of the theme code and the graphics.   More on this later this week.

Then, I put myself in the place of the customer.  What would I want in a package if I was trying to get started with AdSense and WordPress?  I settled on the following five things

• Several themes -- not just one -- with good generic graphics that could apply to lots of different niches.  For example, a medical graphic could apply to any mini-site on any medical topic.  I thought that these "specific" graphical templates look more authoratative than generic templates like ProSense, for example (I love ProSense, by the way -- I just think my stuff is better).
• The same templates in HTML. I wanted to get past the "what if I don't like WordPress" objection that people might have.  Many gurus recommended static sites.  I think WordPress is a better answer.  Including a static HTML version of the templates reduces the risk of trying WordPress for the customer.  If they don't like WordPress, they could still use the HTML templates.
• Some free reports about how to make money with AdSense.  For the complete new person, I wanted to include instructions on how to use the themes to make money.
• Some free content. Again, for someone getting started, having some PLR content that they could "slap" into their site allowed them to get going quickly.

So, I now had a digital product.  I needed a mini-site to promote it, a price, affiliates, a way to take money, a way to handle support, etc.  More on all this later this week.

Best regards,
Mark

Hello all;

Well, I am finally launching my first product on June 30.  I have done a ton of research and testing and I have collaborated with a couple of super-secret underground adsense gurus to create 12 adsense-optimized wordpress themes, complete with niche graphics.  The adsense placement is based on research by a known (but secret) adsense guru and the graphics were made by another guru that makes his living off of adsense clicks.

I am really excited about this because I am going to be able to offer the 12 themes at a great price, and there is a fantastic affiliate program that will pay a 75% commission to affiliates.  The affiliate program ad associated promotional resources will be located at http://www.nicheadsensethemes.com/affiliates
-- probably by Monday June 23.

So, keep your eye on http://www.nicheadsensethemes.com for further information.  There is lots of work for me to do, so I will be a bit scarce for the next few days.

Best regards,
Mark

photo credit: Matthew Oliphant

I just spent $27 of my own money.

Those of you that have been following me know at least one thing about me: it is not very often that I will promote something sight-unseen on my blog.

This is one of those times - I am excited about this product.

The Community Magnet Teleseminar

You see, I have listened to almost every Internet Marketing podcast on the planet (well it feels like it anyway). As part of that journey, I have come to know Jason Van Orden -- one half of the Internet Business Mastery (IBM) Team of Jay and Sterling.

Jason is also the brains behind the best Podcast about Podcasting: The Podcasting Underground.

I have gotten to know Jason through his podcasts, and his blog -- and more recently through private conversations on email and twitter. (Note that I am currently the undisputed world-record holder for IBM Podcast Rate of Consumption (PRC) at over 20 podcasts per day).

I've been on the inside. Before the Teleseminar, (when Jason started writing his Community Magnet eBook,) he asked me to review an advanced copy, and I was stunned.

Now, Jason says this Teleseminar is the most important content that he has ever created -- and I agree.

I hope this blog post reaches you in time because I just made a special arrangement to get you a $70 discount on a special teleseminar. Jason's teleseminar reveals how to magnetically attract a following of loyal customers with an easy and inexpensive marketing strategy...podcasting.

Because I'm a partner in this teleseminar, you can attend as an insider guest for $27 rather than the normal $97 list price. But you have to hurry because the call takes place this Wednesday, June 4th.

When I first got started in Internet Marketing, I ran across a lot of discussion about "article marketing."  Article Marketing is often confused with "bum marketing," but they are not really the same thing.  It all seems so obvious to me now, but I remember having a hard time getting a clear description of article marketing. So, I'd like to offer you what I consider the key ideas behind article marketing. If you want to know more about article marketing, I am going to point you to my five favorite resources at the end (which are great, but not required to become an article marketing guru).

So, what is Article Marketing?

Article marketing refers to a traffic generation method that depends on submitting informative "articles" to sites called "article directories." These articles generally consist of an article body that has generally useful information, and an article resource box that contains links back to the author's site. This technique is sometimes mistakenly called "Bum Marketing."   Actually, as pointed out by Josh Spaulding, Article Marketing is one of the tools that Bum Marketers use (so named since it is so easy even a bum could do it.)

Good article directories have great traffic and strong Google page rank, so publishing your information there increases the chance that people will see and read what you have to say. Additionally, article directories allow people to copy and republish their articles, provided the article is unchanged and the resource box is preserved. This means that your article with your links could end up on multiple sites with lots of exposure.

There are literally hundreds of article directories, the most famous of which is eZineArticles. (As an example, you can see one of my articles about Viral Marketing.) The fact that there are hundreds of article directories opens up the possibility of submitting your article to many directories and multiplying your exposure. (There can be downsides to this, however, as we will discuss below).

Two Sources of Traffic

The beauty of article marketing is the possibility of two complementary sources of traffic. This is a key point that is often not understood. When you initially submit your articles, if they are well written, you should expect that they will be spread and read. If you write an effective resource box, those same readers will want more information and click the links in the box.

This simple idea generates immediate traffic to your site. Eventually, as the article ages, it may fall lower in the article directory as it gets buried by newer articles on the same topic. This usually means that click-through traffic from articles will fall off as a function of time. Sometimes articles go viral and the clicks keep coming, but this is not usually the case.

Not to worry. Now your article has spread around the net with links to your site at the bottom. Google sees these (correctly) as backlinks to your site. Done properly, these backlinks can help you rank for the pages that the links are pointing to. So, while your direct click-through traffic is falling off, your organic search engine traffic will increase. Pretty cool, eh?

A word about content and keywords

There are lots of things to think about when you are writing articles for article marketing. Most importantly, you need to have a keyword strategy for the content on your site and the content in your article. It may not make sense to directly compete with your own website, for example. Rather, you may want to choose keywords for your articles that complement the content on your site.

For example, if you have a site on "blue soap," you may want to write an article on "green soap" knowing that people interested in green soap will also be interested in blue soap. You need to think about this carefully.

Earlier, I mentioned that you could submit the same article to multiple directories. You can, and I do. But you need a strategy for that as well to balance the effectiveness of the submission against the impact of duplicate content. Google expects syndicated content to be duplicated, but there are still tradeoffs that need to be considered (beyond the scope of this brief article).

Article Marketing Resources

As promised, here are five resources that I actually use for article marketing. I have purchased these tools myself. Don't misunderstand me: you can be successful in article marketing without any tools. These are the tools that I personally use to improve the quality and productivity of my article marketing efforts.

• Article Marketing Domination. This is an excellent eBook by article marketing guru Josh Spaulding. This eBook covers all of the details that i have glossed over above, and is a complete reference. You can do article marketing without knowing all the details, but you will get lot better results if you have all the facts. Most things in life are like this.
• Article Post Robot. A tool for submitting articles to multiple sites. It is really tedious and boring to submit the same article to 50 article directories. Article Post Robot automated this process. This is not the most elegant tool on the planet, but it works very well for me on over 50 article directories (the software supports many more).
• Instant Article Wizard Pro. IAW Pro is an amazing tool for article research. I just learned about this tool this week, and have used it a few times with incredible results. Basically it searches the web for research on your keywords and mashes the pieces together in reasonable sounding paragraphs. Cuts article writing time down by a factor of ten or more in my experience. Even if you have no intention of buying this thing, you have got to see the video.
• Micro Niche Finder. One of the most important parts of Article Marketing (not really covered well in this article) is keyword selection. I use Micro Niche Finder for all my keyword research.
• Josh Spaulding. OK -- he is not a resource, actually. He is a person - a really nice one. Josh is my "go to guy" and mentor for Article Marketing, and the author of Article Marketing Domination.

The Bottom Line on Article Marketing

Article marketing is a great way to promote your website, affiliate products or affiliate program. By writing an article that delivers value and offers a subtle mention of your affiliate product or critical keywords, you're well on your way to getting the proper exposure for your promotion (whatever it is). Simply put, Article Marketing is a great way to promote your business online.

Regards,
Mark

Last week I had lunch with a close friend. My friend wanted to start a web site about science fiction. He asked me if I knew anything about starting a blog, making money on the web, Adsense, SEO and a host of other Internet Marketing topics. He knew that I had been working on MasonWorld.com for the last few months, but we had not discussed many of the details.

Amazingly, I did know a lot. I suddenly realized that after six months of aggressive study, I had accumulated a ton of information and experience in the mysterious world of internet marketing. That night, I spun up some web hosting and launched my friends blog for him.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I am not the Zen Master Guru of Internet Marketing. I did not present him with any new ideas over lunch (although many were new to him). Many smart people have come before me and done the same things I talked to him about that day.

So, here is the really cool part. Today, my friend made his first post on his shiny new blog. The blog is called SpaceTimeStories.com.

Of course, he has lots of work to do on the theme, the sidebar, the content, marketing, etc. But he is up and running, and that's what counts. Instead of thinking about having a blog, he has one! That is a key message that everyone new to IM always has to learn -- you must take action to get results.

I would really appreciated it if you would pay him a visit and welcome him to the blogosphere by commenting on his first post. Tell him Mark sent you.

Regards,
Mark

I hear a lot of the Internet Marketing gurus brag about how they cannot even write their own landing pages. They argue that most (or all) of the technical stuff should be outsourced so you can spend time on marketing instead of hacking. There is no money in hacking, they proclaim. I see their point, and who am I to argue? After all, the number of "million dollar launches" that I have been involved in is exactly zero.

I do wonder sometimes how you know if outsourced technical jobs are being done correctly if you don't understand the underlying technology, but that is a subject for another blog post. This post is about code. And one thing you can say about internet marketing specifically, and the internet in general -- there is a lot of code out there. Code makes things work, and the quality of code can make or break a project (or an application).

WordPress is a great example of a situation where coding quality is absolutely critical. Apart from the core engine, there are hundreds upon hundreds of plugins that depend on the quality of the core code. Those plugins, if improperly written, can crash other plugins or even crash WordPress itself. In addition to that, there are themes which are really just code. If your theme is not written well, it can break too.

Last week, I was working with an excellent WordPress theme developer on a new theme. We were doing all of our testing on a site that was recently upgraded to WordPress 2.5, and were using some stock WordPress 2.5 template files. During our testing we found that some of the stock WordPress 2.5 theme files did not run on a WordPress 2.3 install. Now this is understandable -- after all, why would anybody expect something designed specifically for WordPress 2.3 to run in WordPress 2.5. (Note that he was doing all the work -- I was just along for the ride).

As it happens, the theme test we were working on crashed in WordPress 2.3 because it depended on the new gravatars function called in comments.php. Gravatars is the cool function now native to WordPress 2.5 that puts the author's picture next to their comment. The code in the them looks like this:

echo get_avatar( $comment, 32 );

See the problem? The theme called get_avatar without checking the return status (if available) or at least whether or not the function existed. Luckily, php provides for situations like this. The "function_exists" function lets you test to make sure that a function is there before you call it. So, a better way to call a function like this is:

if( function_exists('get_avatar')) { echo get_avatar( $comment, 32 );

This tests to make sure that there is a function called get_avatar available to be called. It does not say anything about whether or not the call is successful. Now, you can reasonably make the argument that there is no need to test for get_avatar in a WordPress 2.5 theme since only a knuckle head would run WordPress 2.5 code under WordPress 2.3. I get that. But I also believe that it is always good practice to design code so that it is robust against unexpected circumstances.

Always use protection.

Regards,
Mark

P.S. The theme that I was working on is called SEOAdMax by Garry Conn. It is available for free.

Almost completely hype-free, the book covers five methods for making money on-line:

• Information Marketing -- Selling digitally delivered information. In this section, Yanik describes why selling digital information is the ultimate way to go. I happen to agree with him, as this is part of my long term plan. He covers the basics about how to get started registering a domain and setting up a shopping cart. The section is only about 100 pages long, and is not a complete guide. However, looking at it from the perspective of a brand-new-to-the-internet person, it is a great beginners guide.
• Selling on eBay. I don't know the first thing about running a real business on eBay, so it was hard for me to evaluate this section. Sydney Johnson covers how to select products, how to do listings, and what makes a successful seller.
• Affiliate Marketing. This sections is nicely done by super-affiliate Rosalind Gardner. I like this section too as it is also part of my longer term strategy. When I started looking at making money on line, I did not even know what affiliate marketing was. It would have been really nice to have seen this section of the Silver book at that early stage. Gardner talks about how to find and work affiliate programs. The advice she gives is very similar to the advice in a recent post about how to make money online by Garry Conn. Good, solid fundamental information about how to get started.
• Yahoo stores and E-Commerce stores. Again, not something that I am highly interested in. The section covers the history of Yahoo stores and how to select a niche, drop-ship, take payments, etc.
• Blogging. I liked this section. It was written by Darren Rowse - lending instant credibility. It covers what a blog is, how to set up a blog, and how to monetize. Again, since it is only 50 pages long, it is just a start and covers the basics. However, if you are just starting out, it is a great overview.

So, why write a real book? At $21.95, this 300 page book sells for less than most eBooks. The answer is that this book (which provides useful information and is a great value for the beginner) is actually a loss leader for the associated website. The book comes with free videos. When you go to the web page, you hit a squeeze page that collects your email. According to the book, they have plans for a membership site.

No matter. If you are a beginner and you are having trouble telling whether or not guys like Jeffrey Lant are on the up and up, this is a great book for you. If you are not brand new, take a pass on this book.

Regards,
Mark

Most Internet Marketing gurus talk about the great lifestyle that is possible with web-based businesses. You can work when and where you want. You can "make millions from a hammock on the beach." That sounds really cool. Interestingly, I was even able to find a list of the top ten beaches with WiFi access. I'm not sure about all this lifestyle stuff. All of the IM guys and gals I know are working 18 hours a day.

I'm personally coming at this Internet Marketing (IM) thing from a different angle. I already have a cool day job that I like as an engineer at a big technology company. One of the really great things about having a day job outside of my Internet Marketing hobby is the potential for exposure to cool stuff. As I mentioned last week, I was in Asia on "day job business." Last Friday night I was able to go eat at a restaurant in Clarke Quay, Singapore called Jumbo's Seafood.

Clarke Quay is "historical." It's a riverside quay located within the "Singapore River Planning Area" upstream from the mouth of the Singapore River and world famous Boat Quay. Clarke Quay was named after Sir Andrew Clarke, Singapore's second Governor. (A quay is a structure built parallel to the bank of a waterway for use as a landing place - I did not know that.)

I had a signature dish for the area called Chile Crab. Totally outstanding, and highly recommended. Served best with Tiger Beer (local to Singapore). Tiger beer is nice and crisp with an easy finish. Like all alcohol in Singapore, Tiger Beer is very expensive.

I am told that restaurants all over Singapore have chile crab on their menus and that it is considered one of Singapore's national dishes. The crab that I had was a beautiful whole crab awash in spicy chile sauce. I've eaten food all over the world, and I would put that chile crab up against any seafood anywhere.

This was my first visit to Singapore, and it was not what I expected at all. Most Asian cities that I visit are wonderful in some distinctly Asian way. This city is wonderful in every sense of the word. It is a multicultural city heavily influenced by China and Great Britain. It is clean and safe. There is a ton of shopping and amazing food. The people there are nice, and all the signs are in English (my Mandarin is horrid).

I was able to stay in a wonderful 5-star hotel in the financial district. This got me to dreaming. What if I really hit it big and created a massive online empire? Then I could hang out in Singapore and eat Chili Crab. At that moment -- right at the second that I was imagining being bought by Google -- my BlackBerry started ringing and there was someone in the U.S. that wanted to complain about the latest crisis at work for $3/minute in international roaming charges.

That brought me back to earth. At least a got a blog post out of it. LOL. I can't wait to go back to Singapore.

Greetings from Asia

One of the great allures of Internet Marketing is the lifestyle that it promises. Almost every Internet Entrepreneur that you run across will talk to you about the magic of being able to work when and where they want. In fact, Jay (from my favorite podcast Internet Business Mastery) recently moved to Buenos Aires ostensibly just so he could learn how to Tango. Now that is lifestyle management. He was able to do that because of the miracle that is the Internet (which was invented by Al Gore - not). Of course, what a lot of these Internet gurus fail to tell you is that they are totally addicted workaholics. But that, my friends, is a topic for another post.

As I have mentioned many times, I have a day job, and Internet Marketing is a hobby for me. This week, my real job has me in Asia visiting suppliers. It's a lot less exciting than it sounds, involving lots of jet lag, too many calories, not enough exercise, and too many different hotels. Anyway, I wanted to be able to do some work on the blog off-line on the airplane. I use WordPress, and the post editor (which is not that great) is an on-line tool. So, I started searching around for a good tool for off-line blog posting tool that would run on my Dell laptop.

It turns out that without too much searching, I was able to locate a tool called ecto. Now ecto is actually a "desktop blogging tool." I am not sure how it will behave off-line, but it is neat when you are connected to the Internet. Basically, you tell it about your blog and it interfaces to the blog backend. This post is my first try to use it. It is a pretty neat tool that is available for the Mac and for the PC. I hear that the Mac version is much better. Ecto has nice features -- YouTube, Amazon and Flickr integration, WYSIWYG editor, spell checking, category and tag support, and lots of other things that I have not investigated yet. I am still not clear if it will work well completely off-line (on the airplane). I'll be flying from Taiwan to Singapore via Hong Kong tonight, so I will test it then. Can you say "jet lag"?

Ecto comes with a free 21 day trial, so you can try it out yourself if you are so inclined.

Best regards,

Mark

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