Tech Crunch published a blog in which there is a growing chart of company names with corresponding totals of layoffs.  Seeing the headline ‘Layoff Tracker’ and reading the Tech Crunch numbers was eye-opening and sad but it made me think, ‘layoff tracker’.  ‘Layoff tracker’ is said so often and used by so many in the past year that it’s actually part of our regular language. 

I did a search and found that there are over 72,000 websites that promote, use, or write about their layoff trackers.  There are even a layoff tracker widgets that you can add to your website and read constant updates on mass layoffs around the world.  I researched over two-dozen websites that came up in my search and found that in every single site the purpose of the layoff tracker was to either drive traffic to the website or increase sales, or shall I say revenue, to the tool.  I failed to come up with logical purpose of using a layoff tracker widget.

Every entrepreneur needs to make money.  Perhaps creators of tools like these have found a niche or at least a way to turn lemons into lemonade.  I just want to know to what end could a tool such as a layoff tracker widget possibly do to help?  This weblog’s purpose is to help people who’ve been laid off.  I am laid off and only speak for myself, but I know I don’t want to see stories of thousands being laid off every hour of every day because it’s depressing, not helpful.

Did you ever think that being laid off would become so commercialized?  Please write your thoughts, I’m very interested in getting opinions on this.

U.S. employers cut a larger-than-expected 467,000 jobs in June and the unemployment rate climbed to a 26-year high of 9.5 percent. Workers also saw weekly wages fall, suggesting Americans will have little appetite to spend and the economy’s road to recovery will be bumpy.

The Labor Department report, released Thursday, showed that even as the recession flashes signs of easing, companies likely will want to keep a lid on costs and be wary of hiring until they feel certain the economy is on solid ground..

MSNBC, and all other news networks are leading with this news story since the report being published earlier today.

     Are online jobs the next big thing? For Samantha Johnson it sure is. Samantha, a mother from Boca Raton, FL is thriving, in the middle of an economic recession working in the comfort of her own home.

From her website: “I love my new career… I make around $7,500 a month right now”

Samantha’s story is a very familiar one in these tough times. She lost her job as an account rep for a local newspaper and a few days later her husband was also laid off from his job as part of cutbacks due to the bad economy.

“We knew we had to do something, so we put our heads together and started trying online job opportunities.” Samantha and her husband Kevin wound up getting recruited in a few quick rich business opportunities that were nothing more than pyramid schemes before finding something that really worked.

“We tried to sell vitamins, pre-paid legal services, and even life insurances by inviting our friends to our home meetings. My husband even went to shopping malls to strike up conversations with total strangers, hoping they will become our down line members. Needless to say, we didn’t make any money and actually lost over $1,000. But we kept looking…”

“Finally I realized the best thing to do is instead of hoping that a company that you are looking at is going to last, why not go with a big, reputable company. After looking at several different companies, I picked the safest bets… Commission Blueprint for ClickBank”

In a matter of weeks Samantha and Kevin had a steady stream of income coming in via checks that were delivered to their home. They happened upon a system called “Commission Blueprint” that taught them how to make money as an affiliate marketer online.

“To make a long story short, we made over $3,500 in the first month with Commission Blueprint. All we did was post the links from Google and we didn’t have to sell anything or recruit anybody this time. Pretty soon, Kevin and I were averaging over $7,500 per month as we got better and started maximizing the income potential of Commission Blueprint. This may sounds crazy, but we are actually on our way to make over $10,000 this month, working online 2 to 3 hours a day from our home…”

For those of you that have seen the ’scammy’ sites on the internet that promise you can make millions of dollars online, Samantha warns that this is not the promise being made here and that most of those sites are false representations of earnings you can make.

“We never tell anyone they’ll make millions of dollars, in fact I think this is the ONLY online system that says you probably WON’T make millions, but you can generate a legitimate income from home like I do that more than replaced my full time job.”

Getting started is simple. Following these simple steps below is all you need to do to get started.

Step 1: Get Commission Blueprint.

Step 2: Watch the videos and use the website templates. Follow the directions and start launching your affiliate websites.

Step 3: Deposit the checks!

Associated Links:  Click Here to Go Directly to Commission Blueprint

If you have basic to advanced writing skills  AND  intermediate to advanced skill level in online marketing or developing websites THEN Affiliate Marketing & Review Sites is the best solution for you.

If you have intermediate to advanced writing skills  AND  basic skill level in online marketing or developing websites THEN Product Review Websites and Pay Per Post is the best solution for you. 

Affiliate Marketing & Review Sites

Affiliate marketing is a whole new subject. Being an effective affiliate marketer requires you to dedicate more time to developing websites and driving traffic to your website which can include using Adwords and submitting articles.    Creating websites is easy if you use templates that are pre-made.  Templates enable you to  use the layouts that convert readers to buyers the best, go live faster and tweak for maximum results easier. 

Affiliate Marketing Templates:
<a href="https://www.e-junkie.com/ecom/gb.php?cl=21733&c=ib&aff=51311" target="ejejcsingle">Click here to visit Unique Blog Designs</a>

Review Website Templates for WordPress

Product Review Websites:

Epinions

Epionions has offered various amounts of pay for the reviews it publishes for years. There have been offers of $10 for writing 10 reviews for the site as well as other amounts. Sometimes there are bonus offers for highly-rated reviews.

Shared Reviews

Shared Reviews has a system of reviews and votes that earn money for both the reviewers and the voters. A percentage of the amount that the site makes for each published review is paid to the review writer as well as to the people who voted the review a helpful one.

Review Stream

Review Stream has 10’s of thousands of reviews on everything from stereo equipment to political candidates. The pay scale for Review Stream is based on how valuable it is to the site. A good review that meets the criteria of the site pays $2. Reviews that don’t are paid .40. Payments are made when the writer’s account reaches $50. There is also a vote system in place, as with Shared Reviews. Voted bring in additional .10 apiece.

Software Judge

Paid reviews for Software Judge.com are honest reviews of software. Review writers are paid once their account reaches $200. It sounds like a lot, but each review is paid from $1 to $50, depending on how in-depth and well written the review is. The software to be reviewed is listed on the site. Review writers pick whatever software they wish from that list.

Paid Reviews on Blogs

As breaking through the clutter online becomes more problematic, blog reviews are seen as a way for advertisers to monetize their Web site traffic, generate viral marketing and get some much-needed feedback on how their products are faring in the marketplace.

There are a number of sites that allow bloggers to publish a review on their own blog and be paid for it. Some of these sites require a positive view that’s full of links back to the site or product being reviewed. Others just want to get the client’s name out there and pay for honest reviews that can be either positive or negative.

The benefits to writers are:

• Earn hundreds or thousands of dollars writing reviews. In addition, as you build up a reputation, and audience, your value goes up.
• Increase readership of your blog by writing high quality articles that your audience will appreciate. First rule of blogging is "post often"; it is the key to attracting subscribers.
• Highly targeted content will drive quality search engine traffic to your site which in turn will drive up your site’s organic search engine rank.

Sponsored Reviews

All the features of other paid reviews on blogs competitors with a low 35% transaction fee, meaning you make more money for every review written.

PayPerPost

We rate this #1!  PayPerPost.com offers a variety of ways for new and experienced authors to be hooked up with advertisers.  This is an intuitive website for authors to jumpstart getting paid per post.  Advertisers create "Opportunities" for bloggers to write about their products, services and websites. They range from $5 to several thousands of dollars, depending on the criteria set by the advertiser. Bloggers with high amounts of traffic can expect to earn a significant amount of money for each post they create on behalf of an advertiser.

ReviewMe

Submit your site for inclusion into our ReviewMe publisher network. Begin by creating a free account.  If approved, your site will enter their site into the ReviewMe marketplace and clients will purchase reviews from you. Then, you decide to accept the review or not. Finally, you can be paid $20.00 to $200.00 for each completed review that you post on your site.

Remember, just like any other way to make money online, the best results are achieved if you are writing about a subject you like or a product/service that you have a basic understanding of how it works.  The rationale for this is that your writing needs to speak to readers that are searching and considering buying the product/service you are writing about.  Just like you, a potential buyer is more likely to buy a product that resolves their problems and answers their needs.

Site Build It! ("SBI!"), is SiteSell’s next-generation small business Web hosting platform. It does more than earn income for customers and affiliates… It changes lives with no experience necessary.

Do a search at Google for "Site Build It!" (with quotes) and find thousands of articles about SBI!. You’ll find that they have more than merely "satisfied customers." There are raving fans and high-earning affiliates.

SBI! owners succeed and affiliates thrive because they use the only product of its kind. Nothing in the world comes close to what SBI! delivers… honest, long-term, ever-growing business success.

Click Here to Go To Site Build It!

SBI! is more than a Web host. It’s a one-of-a-kind blend of content, process and tools that drives success (domain name and hosting included). SBI! grows Top 3% Traffic Sites that generate substantial income… and freedom.

Whether you are a newbie "work at home mom", savvy Web marketer/Webmaster, affiliate, vendor of e-goods/hard goods, eBay seller, network marketer (MLM) or offline business owner, SBI! can help you create an online business presence without the need for an IT department or designers and developers.
 
No matter if your visitors have an interest in travel, entertainment, investing, food/cooking, real estate, sports, hobbies/crafts, self-help, health, whatever audience you reach… super affiliates or retired folks who barely know how to get e-mail, you no launch the right layout and content using SBI!.

SBI! is the Net’s best-kept secret, yet SiteSell has grown into an Alexa Top 500 Company. And now we’re recommending it to you to get your affiliate business off the ground …

Click Here to Go To Site Build It!

How Is This Different To Super Affiliate Training Programs?

SBI! is a turn-key solution – an all-in-one. When you buy the program you are investing in a solution designed specifically for affiliates to create, launch, monitor and perfect their websites.  SBI! is, in effect, doing the work of launching your affiliate business for you. Through SBI!, they will assist you with buying your domain, website hosting and doing the other technical work of getting your website public for you, and SBI! even helps you create copy that sells.  No other program offers this type of assistance affiliate marketers.

The other programs that I’ve bought and love are: Super Affiliate Handbook and Commission Blueprint which are ideal for people that have some online and/or marketing experience. So far, I’ve used these two guides and set of videos to learn how to save precious money using Google Adwords tricks and use social media marketing sites like Squidoo and Facebook to drive traffic AND sell product on these free sites.

It really is true that no one affiliate program teaches you everything.  But, if you combine the best ones that you understand then doing the extra work to sell your product or service online is easier and has better, longer-lasting, revenue generating results.

My Personal Best Recommendations:

Newcomers and Beginners:  Combine the SBI! with Super Affiliate Handbook  

Intermediate Level (some experience in online or marketing):  Combine SBI! with Commission Blueprint

They all have money-back guarantees, so try them out up and kick-off your new money-making online career.  If you’re laid off like me, then you’re home anyway so you may as well try it!

Before starting a roadmap to recovery from layoff,  you must believe in your heart of hearts that being laid off was not your fault, you did not cause it to happen.  You are a victim of a poor economy, someone else’s bad decisions (like AIG) and a reactionary public scared off from buying.  Understand that your feeling like a part of you has died is real because that is what has happened.  You are not physically dying, it is the way that you defined yourself that has died.  ‘The way you defined yourself’ means that all of us define ourselves by what we do whether it’s job title, paycheck, job function, or people we help.  What we do with our lives is how we say to ourselves and others this is who I am.  Think about it, when you meet someone for the first time what is one of the top three questions you ask, ‘what do you do?’ 

Warning… this is written very directly and without any intention of being harsh.  It takes more than a pat on the back and chin up attitude to pick your life back up again.  If you are having trouble coping to the point where you are not leaving your house or cannot control negative emotions then you need to get professional help, stop reading this and pick up the phone.  A subjective grief counselor, not related to you, can help you map out your layoff recovery plan.

Start your road map to recovery from layoff:

1. Vent. Write down all your upset, frustration, anger, finger pointing and regrets.  I used Laid Off Pissed Off.com because I’m so upset the world has to know about it!  The goal of this action is that you have an outlet into which you can pour out your emotions.  Pouring out your emotions enables you to visualize them and put them into a perspective that you can cope with and you can move on.

2.  Treat yourself with kindness and love.  Do for yourself exactly what you would do if your best friend had lost someone close to them.  This is not overly dramatic because in a sense, there was a death, it was a part of yourself that is no longer there. There are 5 emotional stages of job loss that you will go through and being kind to yourself will ease your stress. Give yourself a 7 day vacation from myself and my misery. The premise of the vacation from yourself is to stop being miserable for 7 consecutive days and do the things you love.  Veg out in-front of the television for hours at a time, cry till you can’t cry anymore, eat brownies, make love, fulfill a fantasy or several, go out with the girls or play a round of poker.  Notice there is nothing here that costs a lot of money – play poker with fake money or have a potluck night with friends, simply be creative with what you have in the house .  Don’t over do it to where you have changed a dress size, disrespected yourself or spent money you don’t have because these just bring on a set of all new problems.  The goal is to smile as often as possible.

The rationale of smiling often is that you are giving yourself the permission to laugh and smile again.  Psychologically, when you lose your sense of self and are depressed your mind and body think and react negatively to the depression.  That is why when people are upset or down the sadness seems to emanate from their bodies.  Their eyes are not as shiny, they have poor posture, seem distracted or have cold and flu like aches and symptoms.  You need to refocus your thoughts and retrain your mind and body, the muscle that it is, and force it to be positive. 

3. Make a new routine.  So far, you have poured out your emotions on paper or on Laid Off Pissed Off.com and taken a vacation from yourself to get in the right frame of mind to start over and find a way to make money.  Everyday you did the same routine of preparing for work.  So now, you are the job Monday through Friday because looking for a job is a full-time job.  Get up early, get dressed in normal clothes not the oversized shirt and boxers, and do a little something with your hair and get prepared to go to work at your new job – your job hunt.    Set aside several hours to research popular job search engines, starting your own business online jobs to earn extra cash and freelance job search.  Consider retraining for a new career.  Research the activities you like to do for possible job opportunities. For example, if you like working out you could be a personal trainer, if you enjoy helping people achieve their goals you could be a life coach, or if you like writing you can write for blogs.

4. Budget budget budget.  It goes without saying that you have a dribble of money from unemployment and it doesn’t last forever.  Undoubtedly, budgeting is part of every thought you have and there are so many things that you can do to cut-back that it’s a whole other chapter.

5. Exercise.  Physically do something for an hour every day to reduce stress.  Being home or depressed slows your metabolism because you’re not moving your mind or body as much. The lack of activity also means that you will not sleep as easily or through the night.  Who can sleep when their losing their home and are broke?  I’m there and although I don’t really sleep well anymore, I am not as restless when my mind is racing at night with worry. Exercising will clear away the sadness from your heart and mind. 

An obvious benefit of exercise is weight control.  Use this time off as an opportunity to get fit.  There are many free and easy services like GetFit Boca Raton and My Food Diary that provide you with exercise routines, diet and weight trackers, recipes that save you money over buying less healthy processed foods and goal setting.  Participating in local fitness events like marathons and fun walks are terrific ways to meet people, get fit, be outside and keep your competitive edge alive whilst staying in budget since it’s free.

6. Family.  If you haven’t already learned a valuable lesson of being laid off, family is the most important thing in your life.  Undeniably, your family has been strained and attacked by unemployment.  Your family is key to your layoff recovery.  Unless your spouse or partner is a total jerk, you have emotional support and someone willing to hear you say out loud all that troubles you. Communicate with your him/her and your children to share what has happened, how you are feeling and what you are doing about it.  Communication is glue that will keep you all together and on the right path.  If your family does not know what is happening with you they cannot help you and they may mistakenly perceive you to be perpetuating your own sadness unwillingness to move on.  Perceptions such as these will turn to resentment and more stress.  Be honest and ask yourself, how long would you be able to stay in a relationship where you were being shut-out , financially trapped and surrounded by negativity?

Having a family is a tremendous source of strength, use it.  Being alone and having to go through a layoff, losing a home and struggling to rebuild a life is almost devastating emotionally.  You constantly ask yourself, what is it all for, did I really sacrifice a family for a paycheck or, my personal favorite, is it too late to start-over?  I am sure that these reasons are why memberships to dating services have doubled in the last two months and condom sales are way up!  A cheery thought.

Layoff recovery is tough and something you have to do everyday.  Put your game face on and succeed at your new job – you by creating your own layoff recovery road map.  The world is changing every day, new opportunities are being born and you will move on.

We’ve scoured the web and come up with what we think we the best blogs on the subject:

Best Place to Vent:   Laid Off Pissed Off    A place to vent and a support forum with ways to make money.

Best Starting Over:    Seagate Web Solutions   A one stop solution to start your own, blog or online business, get a website, learn how to optimize and market your blog or better yet – hire someone to do it.

Best Recession News:  Recession Wire

Best Cooking and Recipies: Great Depression Cooking  (recipies for the Great Depression)

Best Job Search:  Odd Job Nation

Below are 6 internet money making businesses that have complaints against them on Rip-Off Report.com, a website for consumers to post their complaints and experiences and get advice on how to get their money back.  

Jeff Paul Systems Internet Millions running lots of infomercials all day

Jeff Paul Systems advertises on television as a home based business opportunity that is turnkey, using a proven product and stating in his material that it can be started up with zero dollars, no computer, and no computer experience.
You start with a small purchase price of the initial material, $54.95 with shipping included. What you receive in the mail is useless and they give you a number to call so they can upsell a larger package based on what ‘you’ want to make per month. Of course, what you ‘invest’ is related to how much you can sink into it. They try to upsell anywhere from $5,000 to $15,000.

Read Full Rip-Off Report

Government Grant Help Center

Available for sale over the internet and pitches to help you with government grants.  This particular company is a scam for credit card fraud by putting charges on your credit card without your knowledge.

Read Full Rip-Off Report

Stone Evan’s Plug-in Profits

Stone Evans, creator of the Plug-In Profit System, promises a clone website of his own home business set up for you, but not before you complete three (actually seven) steps that all require you to sign up under his name.

In order to get people to your website, Stone Evans and the PIPS community advocate the use of e-mail spamming. It’s a sketchy ‘business’ that costs hundreds if not thousands of dollars to purchase e-mail (’leads’) lists, and bottom-line: it’s illegal and just not worth it. Aside from that, nearly every link you can click on your web-site somehow will put more money in ‘Stone Evans” pocket, making him richer, and the unknowing people he scams poorer. In terms of monetary investment, ‘Stone Evans’ promises you to be making money for under $30 (do the math on the front page alone–it’s a lie), but once you sign-up, his ‘30 Days to Success’ requires you to sign-up (under his name OF COURSE!) for half a dozen other things that range from $19.95 a month to $75+ a month. GET A REAL JOB, ‘STONE EVANS’.

Read Full Rip-Off Report

Steve Waters

I paid the $200 initially (I should have known his promo letter was SPAM) But it was so convincing, I fell for it. Then came the personal phone call, he talked me into another $400 to be a ‘5 star general’. He was so GOOD.

I think of all the times he made me feel like sh*t for questioning him, when my gut told me something was wrong. And I fell for it. I’m SO angry, and want revenge.

Read Full Rip-Off Report

 

Internet Riches – David Kennedy

Internet Riches – David Kennedy they promised to send me the package that would show me how to make money online for 49.95 i gave them my credit card info and I got a weird alien message saying warning and listing all my info! I have never heard from them again and I have received no package!!

Read Full Rip-Off Report

 

PaidSurveysOnline.com

Their claim:
Sit Back, Relax, and Get Paid for What You Think!!
Get paid to take online surveys – $5 to $75 per survey!
Get paid to participate in online focus groups $50 to $150 per hour! Get paid to try new products – keep the products and get paid too! Get paid to preview movie trailers $4 to $25 per hour!

HOWEVER, there is a $32.95 membership fee to get access to their ‘list’ of companies who will pay you to do surveys…I’ve signed up with at least 50 or 60 of the companies listed on their websites and have NEVER been contacted to complete a survey and it’s been almost a month.

Read Full Rip-Off Report

The first step is your business concept.  What will your business do?  Will it sell one or several products, who’s products – yours or someone else’s or are you providing a service?  Your expertise relative to the product or service you are selling, time available, customer target, business connections (potential customers), and money to invest in start-up. 

You don’t need to have any experience to start an internet business, nor do you need to have money to invest, but you do need to have some basic computer skills, for example, the ability to get online and use email and the internet. You also need to have a few hours a week to spare and be persistent if things don’t always work first time! If this sounds like you, then read on…

Step 1:  Educate yourself

Use Google and search the keywords that you think people will use to find your product or service.  Scan through the first three pages of the search engine results to see what others are doing, get ideas and ways to make your product or service unique, relevant and useful.  If you cannot then maybe  it’s not the right idea – keep that in mind always, it’ll keep you on your toes.

Subscribe to free sites like Entrepreneur.com to get tips on how to launch a business and niche site related to your business and how your are going to sell it, like Seagate Web Solutions which is a one-stop-shop resource for businesses that want to launch a site quickly and Pro Blogger which has great information about blogging and using blogs for writing.

Step 2:  Create the skeleton of your idea

Draft a high level overview of the your business plan. 

These are a few links to valuable resources for business ideas:

Site Build It!   Site Build It! (”SBI!”) is the only, all-in-one, site-brainstorming-and-building-and-hosting-and-marketing, step-by-step system of software tools that delivers thriving, profitable business.

Step 3:  Add the flesh to the bone

Map out what your site will look like and how it will function.  We highly recommend using a free (open-source) platform like WordPress, B2Evolution or Droopal. Don’t get intimidated – it really doesn’t matter if you know how to use these. The point is that these are all free and there are hundreds, if not thousands, of free and premium all ready made websites you can upload – just like you would a video to YouTube or a picture file to Facebook.  Use the shortcuts since they are there and they are very good – pick GoDaddy for hosting (awesome support) and domain search and buy, pick the platform and go man go… write the content.  Seriously, it took my husband two days to launch a full site using GoDaddy, WordPress and Seagate Web Solutions and he can barely do attachments in emails!  The total cost was $1,500 which included a site with email marketing capability to send out his business newsletters automatically.

NBR is presenting a month-long series of reports about jobs as part of our ongoing “Reviving the Economy” coverage. Tonight, NBR’s Diane Eastabrook finds out why retraining might be the right step for workers who have lost their jobs in this economy.

Nightly Business Report . Job Retraining | PBS