(referring to a business model of putting up 10,000 junk web pages for adsense)

That might be focus, but is it proper focus?

Does that . . . → Read More: Building a Business – Proper Focus]]> Going through my notes from studying the NitroBlueprint – an excellent internet business building course I purchased last year – I came across this timely quote about focus:

(referring to a business model of putting up 10,000 junk web pages for adsense)

That might be focus, but is it proper focus?

Does that build a business and do they love doing it? The graveyard of adsense site roadkill with people who went from making $10,000 a month to $83 a month is a mile long.” — Page 14. NitroBlueprint Manual

Good point!

When considering a course, book or product, consider:

• How am I going to use and apply this to my business?
• Do I want to follow the system this course proposes, or does it just teach a tactic?
• Do I have the time to devote to go through it, learn and apply the material?

Even though I’m burning up with desire to get moving on some of the ideas I learned at the excellent Earn1KADay Summit 2009 last weekend, I’m keeping this in mind. In a nutshell, does it really build a business and will I use it?

Technorati Tags: adsense, Business, Marketing

If you are already out there building your own business, keep at it. If you were all prepared to jump ship from your lousy office job, do it. The nasty little secret is that harder times clean up the pool . . . → Read More: Don't Quit and Don't Sell]]> A little sanity check during an incredibly turbulent time in the economy.

Don’t Quit

If you are already out there building your own business, keep at it. If you were all prepared to jump ship from your lousy office job, do it. The nasty little secret is that harder times clean up the pool for the people who are actually good at what they do.

Yes, a lot of businesses fail, although that stupid “fact” about 9 out of 10 businesses failing in the first couple years is so biased and slanted as to be nothing short of a lie.

For example, you know that selling your business counts as a “failure” in that statistic, right? Sounds like a win to me. The only people who pump that biased “fact” are selling you something or are trying to talk themselves/you out of starting a business. They are losers and you should always ignore losers.

The the truth is that if you are smart, practical and aggressive, you’ll do fine. If you work on the business at least some of the time. If you actually build value for clients and customers. If you actually have a plan, and if you can get over the aversion to actually telling people what you do and why they should buy from you, then you’ll do fine.

In fact, you’ll do better than fine, since all the fair-weather folks will drop out very early on in the so-called harder times. Persevere and you’ll come out on top during the recovery.

Face it, are you really safer at that corporate gig? I’ve been laid off, or quit just prior to mass layoffs several times from supposedly secure jobs. The idea of safety in putting all your income earning potential in the hands of another is simply foolish, and I finally learned the lesson reality was trying to teach me.

Don’t Sell

At these kinds of times, when the market is on a roller-coaster, I usually just turn off all market data feeds for a month or two. I can’t stand thinking “I’ve lost $x,xxx today.”

The truth is, if you look at it historically, the people who simply rode out the huge turbulent periods did fine every time. The people who actually see the big dips as opportunities and buy the right stuff at the bottom of the trough did way better than fine. They joined the ranks of the newly rich come recovery time.

Yes, it is annoying. Yes, you might need to put off that addition to your house because you shouldn’t liquidate the asset you were going to use to pay for it. But selling because everyone else it? You aren’t that dumb.

Technorati Tags: Business, Encouragement, Layoffs, Office Job, Sanity Check

I was discouraged, leaving Adwords alone since then, despite the fact that I know a couple people personally who make multiple . . . → Read More: Getting Started Making Money with Adwords]]> A couple years ago, I lost several hundred dollars to experimentation Google Adwords, without making a dime. I suspect that this is completely normal. It is easy to lose much more, I imagine.

I was discouraged, leaving Adwords alone since then, despite the fact that I know a couple people personally who make multiple six-figure incomes purely from Adwords campaigning. But, with my recent subscription to Earn 1K A Day I’ve decided to try it again.

Many members of the site highly recommended the technique found in the Campaign Blast Method ebook. So, I bought it and read it through. The idea is quite simple really.

1. Get a ClickBank account and/or a CJ account to get access to thousands of products you could promote.
2. Pick a niche. There is tons of detail in the book about how to pick good ones.
3. Pick a seller in the niche. This is more a matter of weeding out bad ones than necessarily finding good ones. The guide had several ideas about what to look out for, primarily “leaks” on the sales pages.
4. Research a quick set of keywords that buyers of the product would be using in searches. For this, I ended up using NicheBOT to help me find good, low competition keyword phrases.
5. Put up your campaign.
6. Check daily, and look for a winner (made a sale), or a loser (spent more than you’d make on a sale).
7. Remove losers, keep and expand winners.

Steps 2-5 above are supposed to take about an hour. My first campaign (a loser) took 5! But I’ve been getting much faster, especially with the help of NicheBOT, and I’m down to about 90 minutes.

I made my first sale, finding a winner in a hot niche, about a week into the process. That about fits with what the book gives as a guideline. It says 1 in 7 to 10 will be winners.

In any case, I’ve lost my fear of Adwords, and I’m finally starting to make some money. I’m not near six-figures yet. More like two. But if I can make two, I can make six! It is just rinse-and-repeat at that point.

Technorati Tags: adwords, campaign, nichebot, review, affiliate marketing

Technorati Tags: Advertising, Adwords, Business, Google Adwords, Marketing