It’s been a while since my last post due to so many things going on at home and other matters. Nothing to worry about as I’m still very much alive and well.

I would really appreciate it if you would contribute to the poll, to the right of the blog under the “Quick Survey” heading under the text link Click Here To Take Our Survey.

I’ll be writing up a review of ClickBank and PayDotCom after receiving responses and possible feedback from merchants using each service.

You are also welcome to add your comments at the end of this post. The choice is yours.

Thanks in advance,

It’s disturbing how life stands still with no connection but I can suffice if my groceries are late. Internet v food. LOL

Anyway earlier I was able to watch John Reese launch his new Outsource Force product through his video series, and I thought hey I dress like that on the beach. Only difference is I would wear a baseball cap and a red top. Get ready for a super load of videos and tell me what you think of my beach wear style, or should I say John’s.  ho-ho.

Find out more and watch John Reese on video as he explains Outsource Force!

That’s why I like this article from Ali Brown; Got Fear? Here’s How to Work through It

While many fears, like a fear of heights or of fire, are designed to save our lives, other fears can hold you back and prevent you from achieving (and enjoying) success. In extreme cases, fear of failure, change, or risks can have a debilitating effect on your business, too. Your company could get stuck in a rut, because you’re unwilling to try something new or face a challenge head-on.

Here’s how to overcome fear and unleash the courageous spirit within.

Separate rational and irrational fears. It’s OK to feel a few butterflies before an important interview. Or to dread going to the dentist, because you might need a root canal or a cavity filled. Those are totally rational fears. But if those fears overwhelm you and cause you to avoid giving presentations or going to the dentist, then you may have a problem. And if you’re worried that sidewalk will open up and swallow you or that you’ll pick up a deadly virus in an airplane, then those are irrational fears. Things like that are highly unlikely, so waste the time and energy worrying about it?

Visualize your desired outcome. Let’s say you were invited to give an on-camera interview for a major TV network but you were worried about how you’ll look or sound. But the payoff for giving this interview could be pretty good. You could get great publicity out of it and possibly land other interview, consulting, or speaking opportunities. Your business could really take off as a result. And if your worst fear comes true and you flub the interview, well, your fifteen minutes of fame will be soon be forgotten and you can move on. It’s possible that the network might pull the interview (worst case) or you just won’t post the video on your website. Plus, while you might not like how your hair looks or your voice sounds, plenty of people will be impressed anyway. It’s worth doing, because the potential outcome far outweighs any potential pitfalls.

Try something small that scares you. Another strategy is to perform small tasks that scare you to get into that mindset. Fear of roller-coasters or bungie jumping probably won’t have a negative impact on your business, but conquering those fears can boost your confidence and make you feel empowered to tackle other fears. So try ziplining, whitewater rafting, snowboarding, deep sea diving, ballroom dancing, or whatever else gets your heart racing. Even trying an unfamiliar food can help train your brain that new things needn’t be scary.

Face your fear! Once you’ve tried conquering other fears and visualized your desired outcome, at some point, you’ll need to face the thing that scares you most. Take a few deep, cleansing breaths, then jump in. You’ll often feel a tremendous sense of relief once you’re safely on the other side.

Successful entrepreneurs balance pragmatism with a willingness to face the unknown and take calculated risks. Overcoming fears and embracing new things will help take your business to the next level and enrich your personal life.

© 2010 Ali International

Self-made millionaire entrepreneur and Inc. 500-ranked CEO Ali Brown teaches women around the world how to start and grow profitable businesses that make a positive impact. Get her FREE weekly articles and advice at www.AliBrown.com

Conquer your fears and consider your business goals. Ali Brown has generously laid out how she has grown her product launches from just one sale out of 3 people on her first Teleseminar to present day six figure product launches. In her Product Launch System Ali has her entire blueprint of tweets, articles, emails and all other elements of a real life product launch so you can literally cut and paste the data to fit with your own product launches.

Completely hype free and practical step by step proven formula to deliver product launches to your target audience in any niche or industry. I encourage you to follow from someone who knows how to deliver. Read more about how you can begin running your own profitable product launches using the Product Launch System today.

Sometimes the most obvious details slip you by. Depending on what I’m doing I don’t have the chance to check Facebook  and sometimes I just simply forget!

Automation is essential for ensuring repetitive routine tasks get done instantly saving you time and allowing you to get on with other things. I’ve experienced a few glitches where it has taken hours to update. This may be due to the recent changes being made at Facebook which appears to be slowing down regular features. Follow the steps below to instantly update your RSS feeds to display your most recent articles.

Step 1

Go to your Face book “Profile” and click on the “Settings” tab to the right of your “Wall”.

You’ll be presented with the “Stories by You” menu where your imported RSS feeds are located.

Step 2

Move down to click on the Blog/RSS hyperlink and “Update Now”.

Step 3

Then you will be available to view your latest blog posts both on your Facebook Wall and Notes.

Voila!

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6 Quick Ways To Promote Your Web Site For Free

7 Ways To Make Money From Your Mailing List

I love Valentine’s Day and so should you. It’s one of those favorite national holidays that gets people in a frenzy. Whether you’re in a relationship or not I bet you like to treat yourself with CHOCOLATE!

Gotcha!

Any way I have compiled the Top 10 Best Valentine’s Day Offers!

1. Everyone loves chocolate, in particular, hand made Belgian chocolates like the one’s from Purdeys based in Canada. They have a special range of  “sugar free chocolates“.

2. For those luxury chocolates from the UK  The Chocolate Trading Company are a good choice.

3.  One of the biggest chocolate companies online brings you this lovely Valentine’s Day Organic Chocolate Gift Basket.

4. Need a new web site with free keyword research software for your small business? Site Build It is a good choice. Give your small business idea an unfair advantage with Site Build It. Any web host can provide space, bandwidth and 99.9% uptime, but how many of them can help you build a successful business?

4. At Amazon there are so many gifts to choose from for both His and Her Valentines Day Gifts.

5. Check out some of the Affiliate Networks for seasonal offers to  match your niche.

I celebrated Valentines Day early with a box of 12 raw chocolates from inSpiral in Camden, London. These chocolates have a light delicate taste and are come in a box that can be posted in the letterbox so you won’t miss your treats if your out or snoozing, like I was. LOL

I’m completely hooked o the idea of SuperFoods and nutrition since being introduced to David Wolfe’s Longevity Program where you’ll find Frank Kern talking about delicious smoothies.  I found about more about food than my culinary background!

Good luck with your promotions and don’t forget to prepare for Mother’s Day, Easter and Father’s Day, if you haven’t already.  Some people complain that Father’s Day is overshadowed by Mother’s Day but I wonder if it came first would there be more activity and buzz. What do you think?

Preparation is key for time management to get these prime offers for your marketing campaigns and you can snap up these time sensitive offers for yourself!

Related Articles:

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5 Simple Ways to Make Money Online

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The bad news is that, contrary to what many people will tell you, there’s no “magic bullet” for building a successful online business. The truth is, it does require a reasonable investment of time and energy.

However, the GOOD news is that there are some approaches to earning money online that are considerably easier than others.

Here are our top three favorite ways to make MAXIMUM profits on the Internet, within the MINIMUM amount of time…

1. Let someone ELSE store and ship the products FOR you

One option for getting online and making profits FAST is to sell products using a drop shipper. Here’s how it works…

You choose a drop shipper who carries the kinds of products you want to sell on your site.

You promote those products, and when you make a sale, you charge your customer, and send their shipping information to the drop shipper.

The drop shipper sends the product directly to your customer, then bills YOU for the order, at LESS than what you charged your customer. Your profit is the difference between what you charge the customer, and what the drop shipper charges you.

Drop shipping is one of the quickest and easiest ways there is to start selling online, because, with no stock to buy or store, there’s very little advanced setup required.

And there are other GOOD reasons to consider drop shipping:

Affordability – There’s no product to develop, so no costs involved there, and because there’s no stock to buy, there are also NO storage costs.

Flexibility — You can sell products you otherwise wouldn’t be able to stock yourself.

Better customer service — Your buyers are still your customers, and you remain their point of contact.

Really, the only time-consuming part of setting up a drop shipping business is actually finding a good drop shipper where you can get the kind of products you’re looking for, at a price you can profit from.

Here are some resources we recommend to get you started:

Worldwide Brands: www.marketingtips.com/worldwidebrands

Doba: www.marketingtips.com/doba
There are also many companies online that provide extensive listings of drop shippers, like Aid and Trade (www.aidandtrade.com), and The Thomas Register (www.thomasregister.com)

2. Earn a commission for recommending other people’s products

Recommending other people’s products as an affiliate is another great way to get started online quickly and easily.

As an affiliate, you promote another company’s product or service on your website (or to your opt-in list using email marketing), and for every paying customer you refer to the company’s site to purchase, you get paid a percentage of the profits in commission!

And the BEST part is that once you’ve done the research to find a solid market, it only takes SECONDS to set up an affiliate relationship, and start earning BIG commissions!

Other reasons to consider starting an affiliate site?

It runs itself — Once you’ve completed the setup, you can automate the entire process, so you can earn commissions day and night, year round!

You can earn MULTIPLE commissions — Because there’s no customer service or payment processing required, you can get away with spending very little time working on the site, so you can easily set up MANY affiliate sites to MULTIPY your earnings.
As with drop shipping, you have to do your research and find a good program (or programs) relevant to your business.

There are a number of web-based resources for locating affiliate programs. The best include:

www.associateprograms.com

www.refer-it.com

www.affiliatematch.com

www.cj.com (Commission Junction)
Of course the more traffic you send, the more money you make, so you do need to put some work into creating a site that gets lots of visitors.

3. Join the world’s LARGEST online marketplace, where $4 BILLION worth of merchandise is sold every MONTH!

If you REALLY want it FAST and EASY, there’s no better way to start making money online (potentially thousands of dollars each month), than to start your own eBay business!

Over $4 BILLION (yes, we said billion!) changes hands on eBay every MONTH, so you’ve got a built-in market just waiting to buy what you’re selling!

This is actually our FAVORITE way to start making money online as quickly as possible, because, unlike drop shipping and affiliate programs…

… you don’t even need a website to start making money!

There are other reasons to consider eBay if you’re looking to start making money right away:

No startup money required — You can easily create an account with eBay, get your first listing up, and start making serious profits, for just a few cents

No business experience necessary — You don’t need to know ANYTHING about running a business to get started on eBay, so it’s perfect for people who are just beginning to work for themselves

You don’t need to be computer savvy — If you know how to check your email, you have all the computer skills you NEED to start making profits on eBay!
Whichever option you choose, you can’t go wrong with any of these approaches if you’re looking to create your first business in the fastest time possible!

To your success,

The Internet Marketing Center Team

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If you are planning to start selling online anytime soon, you are very likely to be evaluating different payment gateways for your store. With so many payment gateways to choose from what should you be looking for? Here are couple of tips to help you decide.

1. Ease of integration – Most shopping cart applications such as OS Commerce, Magento and co offer pre-build modules which will work with a particular payment gateway. Look at those first, otherwise you might need expensive coding to get a different payment gateway working.

2. Reputation matters – The big payment gateways have transparent associations or in some cases are owned by a big financial institute. This means that visitors to your online store might recognize the payment provider and feel safer in shopping with you.

3. Go local for better support – From time to time you might need to contact your payment gateway for help and advice. It will be easier if the payment gateway is based in your country so you share the same working days and hours.

4. Back end functionality is essential – You might not know it yet, but you’re going to spend some time at your online account within the payment gateway going over payment details, troubleshooting issues with your website and testing. It’s therefore essential that the payment provider gives you access to a functional back end.

5. Pay attention to the service costs – There’s heavy competition between the various providers all fighting for your business. Because of that prices change between providers and you should always try to negotiate a better deal than the one you see online.

6. Don’t limit yourself – It’s a good idea to always offer a back up payment gateway go give visitors more choice and to have a fail-safe just in case. Services such as PayPal and Google Checkout offer a great solution for a secondary payment gateway which can work along side the main payment gateway.

7. Evaluate basic vs full integration – Basic integration is the option most online stores use. With this option the customer is taken to the payment provider’s site to complete the payment and returned after completion to your store. On the other hand full integration means the customer stays in your store to complete the payment. Due to security measures needed for this type of integration it might come out very expensive.

Good luck with your online store.

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Guest article by Michelle Strassburg Co-Founder at Wood and Beyond, sellers of worktops ranging from ash worktops to iroko worktops. Michelle has over 10 years experience managing online marketing and is an active blogger.

1.  Reassurance

You don’t make people feel safe when they order. Remind people that they are ordering through a secure server. Tell them you won’t sell their e-mail address and all their information will be kept confidential.

2. Sales Copy Aesthetics

You don’t make your ad copy attractive. Your ad lists features instead of benefits. The headline does not attract at your target audience. You don’t list any testimonials or guarantees included in your ad.

3.  On-Going Communication

You don’t remind people to come back and visit. People usually don’t purchase the first time they visit. The more times they visit your site, the greater the chance they will buy. The most effective way is to give them a free subscription to your e-zine.

4. About Your Business

You don’t let people know anything about your business. They will feel more comfortable if they know who they are buying from. Publish a section called “About Us” on your web site. Include your business history, profile of employees, contact information etc.

5. Order Options

You don’t give people as many ordering options as possible. Accept credit cards, checks, money orders, and other forms of electronic payments. Take orders by phone, e-mail, web site, fax, mail, etc.

6. Web Site Design

You don’t make your web site look professional. You want to have your own domain name. Your web site should be easy to navigate through. The graphics should be related to the theme of your web site.

7. Positioning Your Offer

You don’t let people read your ad before they get your freebie. When you use free stuff to lure people to your web site include it below your ad copy or on another web page. If you list the freebie above your ad they may never look to see what you’re selling.

8. Targeting Your Customers

You don’t attract the target audience that would buy your product or service. A simple way to do this is to survey your existing customers to see what attracted them to buy. This information will help you improve your target marketing and advertising.

9. Testing

You don’t test and improve your ad copy. There are many people who write an ad copy and never change it. You have to continually test and improve your ad copy to get the highest possible response rate.

10. Creating Urgency

You don’t give people any urgency to buy now. Many people are interested in your product but they put off buying it till later and eventually forget about it. Entice them to buy now with a freebie or discount and include a deadline date when the offer ends.

Nancy Redford provides practical marketing tips at her blog. Visit us today and sign up for our free newsletter and ecourse. Connect with Nancy via social networks too: http://www.miriadz.com/blog/about

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Feel free to reprint this article as content for your web site and newsletters as long as the author resource is kept intact with live web site links.

The secret to running your business like a million-dollar company is all about getting “back to the basics.”

Taught by Ali Brown personally, this one-time-only course, “Business Building Blocks, Your Solid Foundation For Growing A Million Dollar Company,” is like getting a master’s degree in entrepreneurship!

Develop your Entrepreneurial mindset with proven step by step strategies to success!

Much like Amazon US the methods by which affiliates can advertise has been affected. The penalties for not modifying your Paid Search Placement  disclosure is closure of your account. Therefore I would strongly advise affiliates to update this immediately. Log into your account to view the email notification. You can also read the following excerpt and follow the link below:

“If you are enrolled in the Associates Programme as a Paid Search Placement Associate and you do not contact us to modify your category on or prior to March 1 2010 your Associates account will automatically be closed.”

*The following is the opening message of the Amazon Associates newsletter:

“After careful review of our Associates programme, we have made the decision that as of February 1, 2010, we will no longer pay referral fees to Associates who send users to www.amazon.co.uk, http://astore.amazon.co.uk or www.javari.co.uk through keyword bidding or other paid search on Google, Bing, Yahoo!, or any other search engine, or their extended search networks. In connection with this change, as of February 1, 2010…”

Read the full details of the February 1 2010 update

The above photo is a snapshot of the rear gardens in my neighborhood. The grand result of a whole night and day of snow. For once the forecast for heavy snow showers was spot on so I was well prepared and made sure my home deliveries were sorted over the weekend.  Snow is so beautiful to look at and play in, if you can bear the cold, but a nightmare for the transport system and industry. We are becoming accustomed to the annual occurrence of snow now so the whole country should be prepared, but that is wishful thinking.

Another year begins and many of us fall into the annual ritual of preparing their New Year’s Resolutions. The objective seems to reflect on the events of the previous year and a fresh pledge to complete unfinished projects and plan fresh goals. We do this every year and many of us fail to make it past a few weeks before we lose momentum!

You may think it’s what you should do but do you truly BELIEVE you can do it?

Do you really want it or is it what everyone else thinks you should want?

Does it really mean that much to you beyond a passing fad?

Are you’re not fully committed and passionate about succeeding?

Common Set Backs:

- Self Doubt
- Fear Of Failure
- Complacency

Last year I tried doing a monthly schedule which worked much better than trying to foresee an entire year of events. I found this strategy much easier to manage and my goal setting was more achievable. Take it easy and don’t over react or punish yourself, reward yourself for achieving each goal and give yourself some credit, even if end don’t reach your expected results. Don’t give up!

Not thinking seriously about what you can do realistically with achievable results. Allow reasonable time scale to accomplish your goals and believing in YOURSELF with a positive focused mind. Surround yourself with like-minded people as this will help you to stay on course for success.

- Focus
- Perseverance
- Passion
- Self Reward
- Time

Setting your plans together should be fun and inspiring with room for flexibility and moderation especially as you may come up against some hurdles. You may find the need to amend your original ideas in order to achieve the desired results.

I read several articles on the subject of  New Year Resolutions and found one from About.com the Top 10 New Year’s Resolutions which lists some of the typical aspirations.

No. 10 is my favorite… “Get Organized” because this single factor can mean the difference between success and failure. We need to get organized, have a well thought out strategic plan and set a time scale to achieve each goal.

Happy 2010! Here’s to Good Health, Wealth and Prosperity!

-Nancy