It's Thursday again and that means Part Time Tips! This week we're going to look at your motivation and what drives you to make your internet business a success (whether it's part time, full time, or some time in between!)

You really need to understand what your motivation is and what it is that you want to accomplish with your business. What do you want to have when everything is all said and done?

Believe me, there are going to be times when running a part time internet business is going to be difficult.  For example, your business is going to compete with other things that may or not be going well in your life.  So, you’re going to need to make choices about whether or not to work on your business -- every day.

If you don’t know why you’re doing it, you won’t be successful.

The other thing that you need to know when you’re talking about why you’re building your internet business is what kinds of business situations do you want to avoid? What are you trying to stay away from? What kind of personal situations are you trying to get out of by running your internet business?

Do you hate working with people?  Do you hate working alone.  Do you hate being tied to a city.  Do you want to work in your house?  Do you need to get out of the house?  You get the idea.  What are you goals for your BUSINESS LIFESTYLE?

The question that I often ask people (and I completely stole this from my friend Jennifer “Pot Pie Girl” over at PotPieGirl.com) is this:

Are you willing to do what other people won’t do for a little while so that you can do what they CAN'T DO for a lifetime?

The thing that they "won’t do" usually means "work hard."   Are you willing to do that for awhile so that you can do what other people can’t do for a lifetime?  Usually that means a lifetime of retirement on passive income, a lifetime of living the internet lifestyle, whatever it means to you.

Are you willing to do that? You need to know the answer to those questions. We'll be back again next week to dive a little deeper!

This has been another post in our Part-Time Internet Business Series at MasonWorld.com, where we build successful internet businesses one night at a time.

Wednesday I talked a little bit about stuff going on at the Internet Business Mastery Academy and the importance of Lifestyle Design -- and I got a variety of responses.  A lot of people got what I was talking about -- but I think a lot of people just thought that the idea of designing their lifestyle sounded "Goofy."

I wondered why, and I decided that must be because a lot of people just let their lives "happen to them."

They get into a college (or just decide not to go), they get a job (whatever one happens to be available, they get into relationships (and have kids and dogs), they buy houses and cars.  They have everything - everything except a plan.

Then, before they know it they are trapped in a life they never really thought about.  They failed to design their life.  It's like building a house without a blueprint -- you get what you get, and you may not like it.

The cool thing is that it doesn't have to be this way.

That's why everyone needs to listen to "The 3 Pillars of Designing Your Ultimate Internet Lifestyle" that I was mentioning on Wednesday.  In that audio, you can start to imagine the possibilities.  Just imagine if you could:

• Live anywhere you want
• Make money doing something you really enjoy
• Choose where you spend your workdays
• Decide how many hours you work each day
• More importantly, choose how many hours you play

Sounds impossible?

Too simple?  Too good to be true.  Maybe.  Of course, if you let them, Sterling and Jay will tell you about their students that they have coached that have quit their 9-5 jobs.  Those students are running their own successful internet businesses on their own terms.

But don't take my word for it -- check it out (the audio is free).

Regards,
Mark

I'm writing this in the United Airlines Red Carpet lounge in Narita airport near Tokyo.  It's 2AM Dallas time, but it is the middle of the day here in Japan.  I am waiting on my connection to another Asian country.  That will be my third airplane today and I have a bus ride to follow that.  I left my house in Dallas 20 hours ago and I have another 8 to go before I reach my hotel.  I am officially declaring that a long day (phew).

It's A Small, Small World

All is not lost, however.  I am chatting with Garry Conn via GTalk as I write this.  He is still up in the middle of the night generating content about how to make money online as usual.  It's funny, because with the internet, he has no reason to suspect that I am in Tokyo aside from the fact that I told him.  The technology is simply amazing.  The first thing I did when I got off the plane was to check on Michael Phelps.  Looks like he won his eighth Olympic Gold Medal while I was somewhere over the Pacific Ocean.  Well, on this day, swimming meant something very good for him -- for me, not so much.  Needing to swim during a scheduled international flight over the pacific is never a good thing.  Luckily, no swimming for me today.

Working On The Road

I did spend time on the plane catching up on course material from the Internet Business Mastery Academy (check out my review of the Internet Business Mastery Academy if you missed it).  The courses in the Academy are targeted at designing an "Internet Lifestyle."  Many people in the Internet Academy have left or wish to leave their day jobs to pursue a career on the Internet.  As I have stated many times, I love my day job and have no intention of leaving it.  Still, it would be cool to have a low maintenance part-time Internet business that generated enough cash to pay off the house and support early retirement on my terms.

So, this has gotten me to thinking about my own goals for MasonWorld.com specifically, and my internet business in general.  I know I want to continue to grow this blog, and I want to develop multiple streams of passive internet income (not necessarily from this blog).  In the very beginning, I thought my passive income was going to come from building armies of AdSense and eBay sites.  Sure, I have a few of those, but they are not very fulfilling.  The thing that I love is helping people be successful.  For example, I was happy the other day because someone was able to implement my free link cloaking solution successfully on their blog with my help.  It was not a big deal, really -- but I was glad I was able to help someone (even just a little).

Time To Update The Roadmap

What all this really means is that I need to update the MasonWorld RoadMap with an eye toward 2009.  I will have accomplished everything I set out to accomplish in 2008 by December.  I will have some AdSense sites, a blog I like, some eBay sites, a my first product.  So, what is next?  What do I really want from all of this?  That is what I am working through using some of the methods taught over at the Internet Business Mastery Academy.  When I figure it all out, you will be the first to know.

What Do You Want (Leave a comment below)?

One thing I would like to know is who are you, why do you read my blog, and what would you like to hear about?  That will help me set the direction.  I will also use your feedback to put together a reader survey.  So, let me know what you are thinking.  Leave a comment below, send me email, or drop me a note on the MasonWorld contact form.

Best regards,
Mark

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

I have no idea what the actual numbers are, but I think a lot of people get into Internet Marketing because they want to land in the Internet Marketing lifestyle. Everybody wants to be the guy on the beach with a laptop making $4 million a year. Topics around the Internet Marketing lifestyle have been discussed extensively in the mainstream media lately, and the focal point for a lot of the discussion has been the book "The Four-Hour Work Week". (That's a great book, by the way).

Of course it's one thing to talk about the Internet lifestyle of your dreams, and it's another thing to actually live it. So, I was excited to find that Melanie Van Orden had finally launched her much anticipated website about living the "travel lifestyle of your dreams without being filthy rich." She calls her blog JetSetNow.com. The blog is brand-new, but from the looks of it Melanie plans e-courses, podcasts, regular blog posts and an e-mail newsletter. Phew. She'll be busy.

I don't really know Melanie, but I'm familiar with the work of her husband Jason Van Orden. Jason is the brains behind The Podcasting Underground podcast and is also half of the Internet Business Mastery team. If Melanie's stuff is half as good as Jasons, JetSetNow.com will be a blog to watch. You see, Jason and Melanie are currently living in Buenos Aires Argentina, having recently moved there from New York. Their niche is their passion and their blog, and you can follow along with them in their adventures across the globe.

Check it out you be glad you did.

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

Technorati Tags: blogging software, ecto, internet lifestyle

Just a quick update from the trenches.

I've been hard at work on multiple fronts the last few days. As you know, this blog is about part-time Internet Marketing (and making money on line). The part-time aspect of that phrase means that I have a really limited number of hours to do IM-related things each day. Interestingly, I think there are a lot of people like me that are trying to get started part time. Thus, this blog. If I can help a few people get started, I'm declaring success.

Just so you know what I've been up to, I have been working with a hot-shot pro developer on this fancy new blog theme (more on this in a future post). We're not done with all the tweaks yet, but I am really happy with the new clean, professional look. My eventual goal is to be a recognized authority on part-time online business with a focus on affiliate and information marketing. I plan to get to that place transparently -- no snake oil, get rich quick, or black hat stuff. (Side note -- there is a lot of gray hat stuff out there. We'll have to discuss that in another post). With the new theme in place, I feel like I have a better platform from which to reach that goal. So, this blog will continue to be about my experiences -- blogging in the open about all the stuff I wish that I had known -- it will just look nice now.

One thing I am realizing is that this blog must also about internet lifestyle and time management. If you are going to work on the internet part time, you must figure out how to keep it from taking over your life. So, we'll be talking about various tools that I use to try to make that happen (including virtual assistants). This includes my latest favorite eBook, Zen To Done. That eBook deserves its own post in the future (coming soon).

So, stay tuned. I have recently been working on the promised marketing efforts for HistoryofElvis.com. I have located PLR content, hired someone to write articles, purchased blog posts, and obtained link directory submissions. I've also started a super-secret side project that I'll be revealing in two weeks.

Thanks for dropping by! Let me know what you think about the new theme. I strongly recommend the guy that did it -- he's a real pro. More on that later too. Talk to you soon.

Best regards,

Mark