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Buying & Selling Websites Training Returns

My “world class training product” (well I think so anyway) is now available to the public again!

I have been getting a bunch of emails from people who missed out on my training class from 3 months ago. I’ve also had people asking me for resale rights to the course since I was no longer selling it.

I got to thinking, since the videos are just sitting in the members area, why not let other people make money from them since the content is already made.

So, I’ve decided to open up the course again and let affiliates make money from it.

I won’t be advertising the website myself, so you will have no competition from me.

I’m basically just opening up the existing content so you and other affiliates can make money from my hard work and knowledge.

Since I’m not going to be as involved with the day to day training like I was before, I’ve dropped the price down to $99 and I’m paying a 60% commission to affiliates who want to promote the course.

If you have a website related to making money, have a blog or email list, you can make about $54 for every person who signs up for the class.

I’ve set it up through Clickbank, so it’s very easy for you to get started making money from the course. You can get your affiliate link from this page:

http://www.buyingandsellingwebsites.com/affiliates.php

You probably know by now that the value of the education I’ve provided to students and you know it’s worth WAY more than $99. But, since I dropped the price, it will make it a lot easier for you to sell.

I’m letting you know about this first so you have the first chance to begin promoting it before anyone else. Usually the first people to promote an affiliate program are the ones who make the most money.

I let the buyers of the course have first crack at this affiliate program last week, and one of my students has already made $378 in commissions from the product in the first 4 days!

Here is the sales letter so you can see where your visitors will go after they click your affiliate link:

http://www.buyingandsellingwebsites.com

Anyway, just wanted to let you know what is going on.

If you have any questions, let me know.

Talk soon…

Highly Recommended Training Product

It’s VERY RARE that I come across a product that I feel is absolutely fantastic when it comes to internet marketing.

I bought a product called Commmission Blueprint on Friday afternoon after reading some good reviews about it. I was curious to see what the fuss was about.

Expecting it to be rehashed nonsense like most internet marketing products, I began watching the training videos Friday around 4pm.

I got sucked into the videos and watched all of them non-stop, finishing at about 10pm Friday night. I think there were about 18 videos total and each one was pure meat, no filler content.

He talked in depth about things like “here’s how to find a profitable product to promote”, “here’s how to track your advertising spending”, etc.

I’ve been marketing online for several years and I even learned some pretty interesting things I didn’t know about tracking in adwords.

Almost everyday someone asks me to recommend an internet marketing training program that is good. Unfortunately, there are not very many good one’s out there to recommend.

But, commission blueprint is by far one of the best values I’ve come across as far as training programs go.

The content in this course blows away most of those $1,997 “home study courses”, no joke.

I’d highly recommend you check out the videos. They are only $97 and the videos that talk about tracking your adwords traffic are worth 10 times the cost of the course.

Even if you don’t buy from my blatent affiliate link here, you still need to get this course if you are looking to make money online. It’s just good stuff that you need to learn…

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One Of My New Businesses

Wow, time is really flying!

I haven’t had a chance to post in a while because I’ve been so busy building my 2 new businesses. Both are taking off nicely, and since I’m no longer in the “guru business”, my life is much more relaxed and enjoyable…

I figured I’d share a few ideas with you that I’m working on right now because I think it will help you make money and that’s what this blog is about.

When starting a new business, there are a lot of thoughts and emotions that run through your head. Things like:

- Will this business make money as I put in all this time and effort?

- How much money will this business make?

- I don’t want to risk too much money in case something goes wrong.

and any number of other self doubt questions coming from the “voices in your head”.

I’ve started more than 50 businesses from scratch and purchased of 100 websites in the last 6 years, and I STILL have these questions coming up in my mind.

The fact is, there is never a guarantee that any business you start is going to make money. If anyone promises that to you, they are lying. But, as long as you are willing to put in the effort and stay focused, you will have a much greater chance of success.

One of the two businesses I’m working on right now was purchased. The other I am starting from scratch. I’m much more passionate about the one I’m starting from scratch because it is my own idea and I’m creating it from thin air.

The site I bought is making money and chugging along nicely, but I don’t have that connection with it. It almost feels like I’m just working on someone else’s project. That’s the downside to buying a site vs building a new one.

Anyway, the new site I’m building is a hybrid of an offline service mixed with a website and internet marketing aspect.

I really think this is where the money is right now. By focusing on your local market, you can avoid 99% of the competition online. The fact is, the MAJORITY of people in your local town or city have NO IDEA how the internet works.

Since I’ve been working online full time the last 6 years, I am an extreme expert compared to the offline business owners in my city. Compare me to experts who focus their businesses teaching people online, and I’m probably considered an “average guy who makes money online”.

Many of you reading this blog already have more knowledge than people in your area with offline businesses.

So, rather than being a small fish in a big pond online, you might want to consider being a big fish in a small pond offline like I’m doing right now.

Here’s why I like helping offline businesses with their online marketing:

1) Offline companies are used to paying lots of money for stuff.

Yellow page ads are $25,000 per year. Leases are up to $8,000 per month. TV commercials are $300 a day and typically generate little to no results.

Compare that to people online who are used to getting everything for free and where you can literally start a business for $15 including a domain name and hosting. There is a completely different mindset between these two types of people.

If you want to sell a training program to people online, you have to struggle to convince people to pay you $37 for your ebook. Offline, businesses will literally throw $4,000 checks at you for basically the exact same information (and not complain or ask for refunds either!).

If you can provide a do it for them service, those checks increase even more.

2) You can actually help them improve their business and feel good about what you are doing.

When you come across companies who spend $100,000+ per year on various ads and then you find out they have no way to track the effectiveness of these ads, you can have a life changing impact on their business.

Since everything online is trackable down to the penny, you can help local businesses put together ads online and show how these ads are working. Also, you can use the internet to help track the effectiveness of offline ads for these companies.

If the business is doing radio ads, simply buy a new domain name and use that in that one specific radio ad. Setup a simple hit tracking on that new domain name and you can see exactly how many people are responding to the ad.

Nobody is doing this kind of simple tracking offline, even though it is like marketing 101 online for the rest of us.

3) Little to no competition.

Since everyone wants to live the “internet lifestyle”, people are flooding strictly to the internet because they think that’s the easiest way to make money. When these people start trying to make money online, they are immediately hit with fierce competition and quickly give up their dream of making it big online.

Over the last 6 years online, I’ve seen the changes taking place and I see how much more competitive it is to work strictly online compared to a hybrid of offline and online mixed.

4) You get to work with real people.

One thing that can be hard when working online is you don’t have the personal interaction with real people.

Sure, you might have some instant messaging friends or have your buddy “supercool98″ from a web forum that you chat with, but you hardly ever talk with real humans. You spend all your time typing messages that are just words on paper.

When you work with offline companies, you get to meet some great people. Business owners in the town you live in who have lots of local connections. Some may be very wealthy business-people who want to partner with you on a new business idea.

I guess my main point is, when you think about wanting to make money, don’t limit your mindset to only setting up “adsense websites” or selling ebooks. That stuff is pocket change compared to what you could be making by doing internet marketing for offline businesses or combining your online knowledge with local business problems.

Anyone else tried this hybid model before?

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Complicated Businesses Suck

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Have you figured this out for yourself yet?

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Who Is Your Mentor?

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

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

It really got me thinking…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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4) The mentor should not sell “dreams”.

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

That is physically impossible.

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

a) no money

b) little effort

c) just a couple hours per month

is flat out lying!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So, who do you follow online?

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Reader Discussion Session: Fake LinkBait

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

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

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

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

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

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Get More Done By Working Less

I think the 40 hour workweek is a waste…

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

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

I wonder who came up with this schedule for employees?

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

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

Here’s how I do it…

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

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

Then, you just dive right in.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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