Can you succeed online?

September 6, 2011 by John Dilbeck · 10 Comments
Filed under: Act On Your Dream!, Affiliate Marketing, Business, Sitesell and Site Build It, Success and Failure 

I think that is a question that lots of people ask themselves, every day.

Can I succeed online?

I’m not going to lie to you. I truly do not believe everyone can succeed with an online business.

That’s probably not what you were expecting to hear.

You probably expected me to tell you breathlessly that you can succeed beyond your wildest imagination and that money will gush into your bank account if you only buy the world changing secret that only I know.

Right.

Well, I’ll tell you right now. That’s a bunch of crap.

The real world does not work like that.

Only hucksters, shysters, scammers, and crooks pretend to know the one thing you must know to build a successful online business (or make a few extra bucks every month), and insist that you have to buy it RIGHT NOW or it’s going to disappear.

Nonsense.

Code Red! General Quarters!

When you go to a long form sales page with a gazillion bonuses and all the rest you’ll see, you should declare “Code Red” and turn your BS deflector shields to maximum. Divert energy from the warp engines, if you need to, but raise those shields.

I won’t say that all those pages are scams, but I will say that a large percentage of them just are not worth the time it takes to read it.

At least, for most people.

Deadlines? We don’t need no stinkin’ deadlines!

Also, look at how much they’re stressing a deadline. That is used to intentionally build a feeling of scarcity to get you to buy now. It may be true, or it may not be true.

Lots of times that deadline is programmed in PHP or javascript to have today’s date or just a few days from today. It’s not real, and it should send a signal about how real the rest of their offer may be. (You can prove this to yourself by noting the deadline on the offer you’re considering. Bookmark the page. Go back a few days later and see if the deadline has changed.)

Good business deals don’t need fake deadlines

While there are some real deadlines in business, most of the time a good deal today is just as much of a good deal later. Sometimes the deal gets better over time.

Will it work for real people, or just for technogeeks?

Some of those offers do have good information that can help you sell something online, but most of the average people won’t be able to make it work the way the technical geeks and marketing nerds portray it. (I’m a geek and a nerd, so I can say that. I’m talking about my herd.)

Let’s face it. Most people don’t even know what a browser is and can’t name more than two of them.

Most people don’t know what a CMS or plug-in is.

Technogeeks live and breathe that stuff. Real people don’t.

If you do, then you’re ahead of the curve and you should feel good about learning what you know.

The problem arises that you probably have learned some things that aren’t effective and don’t produce as well as they are claimed. Some are just busy-work. Some try to trick the search engines. Some are unethical. Some are illegal.

Some actually do work.

How can you tell the difference?

Don’t look at the number of hits, or visitors, or page views. Look at your profit and loss statement. Real businesses produce a profit.

What do you know about the company and the people behind the offer?

If I am going to buy anything that costs more than about $20 or so, I think about it and consider my options. I’m not saying I’m cheap. I spend several hundred dollars every month on website hosting, domain names, mailing list services, card mailing services, and other things I need, but I don’t spend the money unless it helps me generate a profit.

(The last two years are a notable exception. I operated at a loss while I was too sick to work, but now I’m focused on profit, again.)

If I’m going to invest any real money in buying something, I want to know who produced it, where they are located, and at least a couple of ways to contact them, before I pull out my card.

Try learning who the owner of the business is. What’s the address of their home office? Do they have a phone number and physical address? Can you contact them? Do they reply with any answers that actually address your questions? How long have they been in business? What do people say about them? Can you talk to their customers? Will they answer questions in public?

Are they real, reliable, ethical, knowledgeable, and honest?

If you can’t verify that for the people who own what you want to buy, how can you verify — in advance — that you’re making a good choice in investing your time and money in it.

I’m going to address some of those questions and I’m going to give you my best recommendation for how you can learn how to build a real, ongoing business online.

Can you succeed online?

No, it’s not easy. No, you won’t get rich in a few weeks. No, you won’t earn more money than your wildest dreams of avarice.

Yes, it is possible to succeed with a work at home, online business.

Are you willing to really read, study, practice, and implement what you learn?

Are you a good writer? Do you spell well and have a good grasp of grammar, sentence structure, and the norms of communications?

Do you have a topic in which you are passionately interested?

If so, then you have a better than average chance to be successful with your online business.

Are you willing to invest a few hundred dollars, a few hundred hours over a couple of years, and a lot of head-scratching, and serious thinking?

Then, you may be one of the few people I’m trying to reach.

I’m going to let you in on my secret, although it’s no secret at all.

First, who the heck am I?

I’m John Dilbeck. That’s my photo up there at the top of the page. It was taken last summer when I spent a day on Lake Hiwassee with my family. The lake is located just to the north of Murphy, NC. I live a few miles from there. If you search for my name, you’ll find me on my own sites and blogs, on social media, and in forums.

I’ve been a full-time affiliate marketer and webmaster for about 15 years and I earned the great majority of my income for most of that time from my online business.

I’ve been around and I’ve paid my dues.

I have been building blogs with WordPress since the early days, before there were plug-ins and widgets and the code had to be modified by changing the PHP scripts. Automatic updating didn’t exist back then.

I’ve been blogging since before that was what it was called.

I’ve been building websites for almost 20 years.

I’ve built forums, communities, an article directory, and other similar online presences. I’ve tested a number of content management systems. I program fluently in PHP and PERL. I’ve been a systems administrator for an ISP. I’ve been a computer consultant since the late 1970s. I taught computer programming and using computer applications at two colleges.

I have owned several of my own companies over the last 30+ years. I was not a raging financial success, but I paid my way and haven’t gone hungry. Learning and achieving have always been more important to me than getting wealthy. I’m not one to dream about getting rich or winning the lottery, and I don’t mind months of work to achieve something.

The journey is the reward. That’s how I see it.

I am not some Johnny-come-lately who is going to try to baffle you with BS about something I know nothing about.

Those are my bona fides.

Why do you promote SBI instead of WordPress? This blog is powered by WordPress!

I maintain this blog mainly to prove that I have a good working knowledge of blogging and WordPress. Plus, I enjoy blogging and discussions with people who leave good comments.

So, let’s get back to the subject…

Can you succeed online?


If you want to learn more, go to Sitesell’s page that introduces the C-T-P-M process. It will open in another window. I’ll wait right here.

Welcome back!

(if you left to look at the other site)

Now, do you remember those questions I asked at the top of this article? Here’s a reminder…

Try learning who the owner of the business is. What’s the address of their home office? Do they have a phone number and physical address? Can you contact them? Do they reply with any answers that actually address your questions? How long have they been in business? What do people say about them? Can you talk to their customers? Will they answer questions in public?

Let’s address these questions one at a time:

Try learning who the owner of the business is.

I know it’s not a question. It’s more of a challenge.

Sitesell is incorporated in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It was founded by Dr. Ken Evoy. You’ll learn more about the management of the company on that page, too.

Ken is the author of one of the first, best-selling ebooks about marketing on the Internet and he overdelivered and underpriced back then, the same way he continues to do.

The book sold for less than $20 when it was introduced.

It was revised in 2002 and the new edition was sold for $29.95.

Unlike many ebooks, this was 1,500 pages of outstanding information. Even though a lot of things have changed since 2002, I still keep a copy of that book on my desktop and refer to it at least once a week. The business information and advice is timeless, even though some of the recommended sites and technical advice is out-dated.

If you want, you can download the ebook for free and you don’t even have to give your email address. Just go get it, if you want it: Make Your Site Sell!

I knew how to build websites before I ever saw that book.

What I didn’t know how to do, was to make my sites sell. That’s what I learned from the book.

I used what I learned in that book to rebuild several websites and sold physical products and services online, as well as earning income through affiliate marketing commissions and Google Adsense commissions.

Make Your Site Sell! was what helped me change from a technogeek to a successful marketing nerd.

So, now, you know who founded and manages Sitesell, Inc.

What’s the address of their home office?

Here ya go. It’s on the bottom right of their LinkedIn Business Profile page.

Their LinkedIn profile also has information about some of their employees.

Do they have a phone number and physical address?

Their physical address is on their LinkedIn profile. Their phone number and email contact form is on the Questions page.

Can you contact them?

You can call or email them. The information is on the previously listed Questions page. The phone number is toll-free in North America, and they have an alternate number you can call if you are located outside of North America.

Do they reply with any answers that actually address your questions?

Test them and see. It’s free. If you have a legitimate question about building your own online business using SBI, they will do their best to answer it. SBI can help most people be successful online, but it won’t do everything and it isn’t for everyone. You can get a straight answer. No obligation.

How long have they been in business?

Sitesell, Inc. was founded in 1997. The company is still headquartered in Canada. Ken has moved to Anguilla to escape those Canadian winters.

What do people say about them?

Except for a well-known Google bomb that was concocted a few years ago around the fake “Is Sitesell a Scam” review, comments are overwhelmingly positive about Ken Evoy, Sitesell, and SBI.

You can also see for yourself on Sitesell’s Facebook page.

If you go there, you can see that over 35,000 people like the page and there are active discussions ongoing. Notice how friendly and helpful those discussions are.

Can you talk to their customers? Will they answer questions in public?

There are thousands of Sitesell customers participating on their Facebook page, and I think most of us are happy to answer questions in public. I’ll respond to your questions here in the comments or on the Sitesell Facebook page — if I see it.

There. I think that shows that Sitesell is an established, above-board company.

What does the media say about Sitesell, SBI, and some of their customers?

Sitesell, Inc. has a Media page that includes reports from newspapers, TV shows, and other websites.

SBI is taught in colleges around the world

I think it says a lot about the credibility of Sitesell and SBI when you learn that the SBI method and tools are taught in colleges and universities around the world.

I am a satisfied customer and affiliate

I am extremely happy that I became a Sitesell customer back in the 20th century and I continue to use their tools in the 21st century.

SBI grows and expands as needed to keep up with what is really important for helping customers generate more income. The SBI system I subscribed to after its original release was not nearly as powerful nor as well documented as what I subscribe to, today. Yet, the cost is the same: $300 per year per site.

Quality and power continues to grow and the price stays the same. I like that.

I have two SBI-powered websites, but they have been largely neglected for the last two years while I fought a battle with cancer that almost killed me last year. Now, I’m on the mend and recovering nicely.

I’ve been doing a lot of strategizing and planning for how I’m going to expand and improve my two SBI sites and you’ll see a lot going on there in just a few more weeks. These two sites will be my primary focus over the next two years and will provide much more income for me than all my other sites and blogs combined. That’s why I promote Sitesell.

And both of my sites are about subjects in which I’m really interested and which I knew, going in, would not be the best choices for earning a large income. I’m doing it for the passion and I’m in a stage of my life where money is not even close to being my main motivator. Still, I don’t mind earning more.

Can you be successful?

If you have basic word skills and can write clearly, and you’re willing to learn a proven process and use a set of tools that work, yes, you can.

And I truly believe that you will substantially increase your odds of success if you build a firm foundation of knowledge and couple it with great tools and support, all offered at one low annual cost. You will NOT be bombarded with a constant stream of upsells, cross sells, and what you may have grown accustomed to, elsewhere.

You will not be surrounded by sharks in the members-only forums. You’ll find people who are willing to share what they’ve learned with you. Affiliate links and promotions are prohibited in the forums.

How much will I earn?

I can’t tell you how much you’d earn, and it would be illegal if I did.

I know many people who use SBI to earn a few hundred dollars of additional income each month, and I know quite a few who earn substantial full-time incomes.

Success often depends upon your own definition of the word.

I am not saying that SBI is the only way to succeed online.

Let me reiterate. I am NOT saying that.

I believe that there are many ways to build a successful online business, but the great majority of them require sophisticated technical skills and knowledge.

I know about that first-hand. I’ve been programming computers for over 40 years and I’ve been building websites since shortly after the World Wide Web was invented. I’ve been selling products and services on the web since shortly after it became legal to conduct commercial operations on the Internet.

I know a lot of ways to build a website and I know how to do a lot of things that I can’t do in SBI. I also know that the great majority of people who want to build an online business don’t know all those things nor do they have that level of experience.

I’m betting you aren’t a technical expert.

But, I’m also betting that you have specific knowledge about something and that you may be surprised that you can earn money while exploring what interests you, legally, ethically, and with class.

You don’t have to become a scuzzy old marketer who takes advantage of people.

Instead, you can learn how to present information to people when they’re looking to solve a problem or buy something they want. And, you can earn a commission from doing that.

Want to learn more? Give SBI a try. There’s a no-questions-asked, 90-day, unconditional, money-back guarantee. All you can lose is a little time and effort, if it isn’t for you. And, you’ll learn more than you know now about building an online business that generates a profit.

What can you gain?

You can gain a lot of valuable business and technical knowledge that has value in the 21st century. You can build a business that provides another source of income. You can find something interesting and useful to do if you’re a stay-at-home mom or dad, or if you’re retired and are looking for something to do with your time.

You can give a gift of real value to your child so that he or she will learn something that can be very useful in a career.

In a couple of years, or so, you can write me and tell me that you’re happy you subscribed to SBI and let me know how happy you are with your business. You won’t be the first who has thanked me for telling them about SBI and you won’t be the last.

It is interesting to me that I’ve referred a lot of people to a variety of business-related tools and information, yet I’ve never received a single thank-you from anyone other than people who subscribed to SBI. I haven’t received many, but there were a few and I should have kept them for reference, but I didn’t.

Most of the people I have introduced to SBI continue to renew their subscription, year after year. Why? Because it’s working for them.

I can’t guarantee that you’ll succeed, but I can guarantee that you won’t lose any money by trying SBI. Not a penny. Subscribe, follow the action guide, take it slow, do each action step methodically, and you’ll learn more about online business than you can imagine right now.

If you decide it isn’t for you, just contact support within the first 90 days and they’ll refund 100% of whatever you’ve paid. If you paid for an annual subscription, you will get 100% refunded within 90 days, and a prorated amount if you choose to ask for a refund after 90 days.

Downside risk? No money to lose, but you’ll have to invest some time and energy to test it.

Upside potential? More knowledge about online marketing and building a website. More technical skills — if you want them. A good opportunity to increase your income.

You may even change your life. Some have.

Act on your dream!

JD

PS. My two SBI sites are Act On Your Dream! and Murphy Gold. Watch as they grow in the coming months.

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Your online business: A business mindset

May 20, 2011 by John Dilbeck · 13 Comments
Filed under: Act On Your Dream!, Affiliate Marketing, Sitesell and Site Build It, Success and Failure 

A few minutes ago, I was reading Ken Evoy’s blog and was very impressed with this post:

A business mindset and other lessons

In his post, he refers to an email he received from one of his customers, Louann (owner of wedding-flowers-and-reception-ideas.com), who was thanking him for what he, the team at Sitesell, and SBI had done to impact her life in a very positive way.

Then he offers eight lessons and an insight into his philosophy. I found her letter and his lessons to be touching and valuable.

I am delighted when I read that someone is having real success with their online business, and Louann has worked hard for several years on a site based on her passion about weddings, receptions, and flowers. Now, she is reaping the rewards for all that hard work.

Her site is about a subject that she loves and understands. She has developed real knowledge of her subject and presents it well. If you are interested in wedding flowers and receptions, you’ll find a wealth of knowledge on her site and links to lots of products you can purchase for your wedding.

What she is not doing…

She’s not trying to tell you how to blog, or make money online, or do any of the other things that most people associate with an online business. She’s not telling you that it is important to promote your business on MerchantCircle, LinkedIn, Yelp, FourSquare, or other similar sites.

Notice the lack of hype. No long form sales letters.

She did not invent a whole new thing. She did not write a book and then look for readers.

She doesn’t market on Facebook or Twitter. She doesn’t have a membership section on her site. She doesn’t have a mailing list or a newsletter.

What she is doing…

What does she have? A large, well-organized site that provides what her readers are looking for.

She uses a very simple design. Two columns. No widgets. No fancy javascript menus. Just a simple, easy to navigate, tier-structured website.

Then, she presents information for free and gets paid for advertising and commissions on sales.

She is providing information for people who are interested in wedding flowers and receptions and she is actively selling them the products they want to make their own wedding dreams come true.

She has identified a niche for which she has passion, interest and knowledge.

She has built a site dedicated to providing what people are looking for in that niche.

People find her site in the search engines and buy the products she provides.

Everyone is happy.

That’s a great example of niche marketing that is completely unrelated to the “make money online” niche.

She provides information that people are looking for. Have you ever wanted to know how to fold napkins into fancy designs for your reception? I haven’t. But some people really, really want to know how to do that. They can learn it on her site.

There are a number of designs available and they link to individual pages that show step-by-step directions and videos.

How much does it cost to get the information?

Nothing. It’s provided for free.

Each of those pages is designed around a particular keyword phrase that people are already looking for. She used the tools in SBI to research those keywords and then designed and wrote pages to put her information in front of people who were already looking for it on the search engines.

When her visitors were happy with the information she provided for free, they were more inclined to trust her and to buy the products she sells: wedding gifts, floral arrangements, photo gifts, and other products related to weddings and receptions.

Years of hard work is rewarded…

I think she has done a great job.

I’ve read many posts on the members-only Sitesell forums where she has discussed building her site with other people who use SBI. (We refer to ourselves as SBIers.)

She has helped others along the way, too, by providing great advice to help us build our sites and attract new visitors. And, eventually, to make sales and profits.

I hope you’ll go read Ken’s post and follow the link to read the email she sent him.

A business or a website…

Back in January, I addressed part of the difference between making money online and building an online business:

Make money online vs. Build a business online

Louann provides a great example that shows the difference between making money online and building an online business.

Well done, Louann! Congratulations on your success.

Act on your dream!

JD

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Today is the first day of the rest of your life

January 22, 2011 by John Dilbeck · 13 Comments
Filed under: Act On Your Dream!, Affiliate Marketing, Sitesell and Site Build It 

This phrase, “Today is the first day of the rest of your life,” was so popular when I was younger that over the years it morphed from being a wise observation to being only a trite saying and something we saw on lots and lots of t-shirts, magnets, and stickers.

Kind of like a yellow smiley face ;) that became ubiquitous, too. (Look it up.)

Still, there is a lot of wisdom in this saying.

Unless you are fortunate enough to have a “way back” or time machine, it’s darn near impossible to go back and change your life in the past. At least, that’s true for most of us.

If there is something you want during your lifetime, there’s no better day to start than today.

That’s one of the things I’ve been doing most of the day. I’m still a long way from being well, but I’m feeling better, and I’ve been researching a few affiliate programs I wanted to join. I’ve been approved for several of them and I’m waiting to hear from the rest.

If you’ve been following this blog for any time, you know that I, and all the other affiliates in North Carolina, were kicked out of the Amazon.com affiliate program back in the summer of 2009. That threw me for a loop, and, coupled with my health crisis, I’ve not yet recovered from it.

Now, I’ve taken the first steps. I’ve applied for, and was approved, by MacConnection
and Barnes & Noble. Now I can start back to marketing a lot of books I like to recommend and my beloved Macintosh computers and other Apple Computer products. That’s a good start.

Both of those are managed by the Google Affiliate Network.

I also applied for, and was approved by CoffeeForLess.com, which is managed on Commission Junction.

I’ve started doing some research on creating links for products at Apple’s iTunes and App Store, which is managed by Linkshare. (Interestingly enough, I can’t find a way to build a simple text link to their iTunes home page, although there are lots of links to different departments.)

So, even with the slow thinking caused by my chemo mind fog, I’ve been doing some real work today.

Why?

Partly because today is the first day of the rest of my life, and in the future I want to rebuild Dilbeck Marketing to what it once was and then surpass that and take it higher than I have in the past.

I got to thinking about this blog post, because my friend Suzanne Prochaska has just been featured on SBI’s – Today is the First Day of the Rest of Your Life page.

It starts with an interesting video that goes from someone being dissatisfied with their job and continues through until…

Well, I’ll let you see for yourself. (grin)

Currently, right below the video, my friend Suzanne is featured, and she has quite a success story to tell. It shows one line to the left of her photo and you have to click the link that says, “What happened after SBI? Click here for the rest of the story.” That shows another line of her story.

If you want to know more, and it’s quite an impressive story, click the link that says, “Click here for more details about Suzanne’s story.”

I continually exhort people to, “Act On Your Dream!”

Suzanne is a great example of someone who did exactly that. She had to work hard and her life went through some major changes, but now she’s living her dream.

A few years ago, she did something that changed the course of her life.

You can, too.

Every day, each of us has the choice to continue as we’re going, or to do something new that will help us make our dream come true.

I know that not everyone wants to build websites or blogs. Some of us love it and others would hate doing it.

But each of us can identify a dream and take action to make our dream come true.

There are two things I constantly recommend to people from my closest friends to absolute strangers. They are SBI and Think And Grow Rich.

Both of them have valuable information to help you identify what you want to do with your life and then take steps to act on your dream. SBI comes with a complete set of tools to help you.

If you start today, a year from now, you’ll be much closer to realizing your dream. It may take less time, or a lot more, but every year — if you stay on track — you’ll get closer to making it real.

So, what about you?

Today is the first day of the rest of your life.

Are you happy with where you are? Are you living your dream life?

If not, what are you going to do about it?

Act on your dream!

JD

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Focus, planning, and implementation

October 13, 2010 by John Dilbeck · 2 Comments
Filed under: Act On Your Dream!, Advertising and Marketing, Affiliate Marketing, Downline Builders, Musings, Network Marketing, Sitesell and Site Build It, Traffic Exchanges 

It’s a beautiful rainy day in the mountains of North Carolina. All the trees are taking a shower before putting on their finest Autumn party leaves and painting our mountains with spectacular color, making them even more beautiful than they are the rest of the year.

Today, I’m sitting at home, sipping some hot coffee, and I’m focused on planning the changes I’m making in my online marketing business.

Somewhere along the way, I lost that focus. Now, I’m working hard to regain it.

I understand business, at least enough to do well enough so that I can live as I please, set my own schedule, and be my own boss.

When I started out with online marketing over a decade ago (way back in the 20th century!), I was fully focused on business. I knew what I wanted to accomplish and I was working hard to implement the plan. It was easy for me and there were few distractions along the way.

However, a few years ago, things changed. I began to get distracted by new technologies, new social networking sites, new marketing techniques, new toys to learn and use, new this, new that, and I lost focus of my plan and many of my goals.

It’s easy to do.

I’ve written about this before, and I’ll probably write about it again. Focus and a well-thought-out plan, with goals to achieve, and milestones to gauge progress are necessary for every business that is oriented to long-term success.

When plowing with a mule or horse, we put blinders on them so that they can only see straight ahead and focus on where they are pulling the plow. That way, they don’t get distracted by other things that may be going on around them.

These days, in regards to my business, I put on metaphorical blinders before working. It helps me to focus specifically on what I want to accomplish during the next few hours.

If you are involved in online marketing in any way, you already know what I mean. All of your friends are doing different things. One suggests that you do something, another invites you to do something different, you get a newsletter in your inbox that tells you that something (like email, Google, etc.) is dead or dying and you have to do what they’re advising (and you can learn all about it by buying their new (ebook, membership site, webinar, course) product for only $47 (or $97, or $197, or $497…).

Before you even get started with what you were going to do, you’re already being pulled in multiple directions. Soon, self-doubt sets in. Are you doing what you should be doing, or do you need to do something entirely different? The more distractions, the more self-doubt. The more self-doubt, the less progress you will make.

I know this for a fact. I’ve gone through it and I’m looking back on much of what I’ve done over the last few years with a sense of amazement. I’m amazed that I let myself forget good common business sense and well-established marketing techniques and spent my time chasing all the shiny, new, red balls that kept bouncing along all around me.

One of my friends was talking to my daughter a few months ago about a mutual friend of theirs. He said she was suffering from ADOS syndrome. My daughter asked, “What’s ADOS?”

He replied, “Attention Deficit…Oh, Shiny!”

Many of us are suffering from the same thing. We’re losing the ability to focus. We expect immediate (or at least very fast) gratification. We want sound bites that coincide with our prejudices and predilections rather than in-depth knowledge and understanding. We want easy money with the least amount of work possible.

That’s no way to build a business. It might be okay for a hobby or a temporary distraction, but it’s a sure-fire way to fail in business.

Ken Evoy wrote in a recent blog post, Focus and Determination, “Very few small businesses go straight up like a rocket. Some businesses go faster, some take longer. And when you’re all by yourself at home, working and building content and getting links and progress is slow, it’s easy to have some doubt about your niche or your ability to make your website ‘work.’ Work through the doubts. Like every business, success goes to those who persevere… ”

Perseverance without a plan and tight focus isn’t enough.

You also have to put your words in front of someone who is in the mood to buy, has the resources, and finds the information you offer reliable enough to make the decision.

Whether we choose to build content-rich, hierarchically-organized websites or write a blog, we need to create something that ranks well in the search engines, and even more importantly, is something that people are looking for with a mindset of buying. It does us absolutely no good to attract a loyal group of readers, friends, and associates who like to read what we say and join in the conversations, but who are never going to be a customer or client. You need to attract people who are interested in what you’re writing about and want to buy something related to it that either solves a problem they’re having or links to something they want to buy.

Marketing to other marketers is a huge waste of time and energy. We are sellers, not buyers, for the most part. Now and then, we may find something we want to buy, but many of us are do-it-yourselvers and would rather spend the time and effort in learning something for ourselves rather than purchase something that you are offering.

You know what I’m talking about.

Compare that with someone who has a passion for a hobby or other interest. They have a good job and love spending money on their hobby. Whether it be raising dogs, gardening, travel, camping, fishing, weddings, photography, games, movie collectibles, dolls, or anything else in which they are passionately interested, they want to do more of it and they have the money to spend.

Most of them don’t care if they ever get their money back or make a profit on their “investment.” The purchase is part of the enjoyment. It’s part of the anticipation of enjoying more of what they do.

Those are the people you want to attract. People are searching billions of times a day for something in which they are interested. You need to learn what they are looking for, evaluate your competition, and then do a better job of providing information, products, and services that all these people want.

The best way to do that is to identify something for which you have a passion (or at least a strong interest), research the topic, identify what people want related to that niche, and then find a way to be found by them.

There are many ways to be found. The least expensive and often easiest is to rank well in the search engines for the terms for which they are searching.

Other ways include traditional advertising, coupons, newsletters, mailing lists, interviews, radio, TV, and all the other ways of inserting yourself and what you offer into their attention.

If you haven’t read “Guerilla Marketing” by Jay Conrad Levinson, do it this week. It was written before the Internet and the Web, and it still offers outstanding advice for selling what you are offering.

With my Murphy Gold site, I’m focused 100% on locally-owned small businesses in the rural area surrounding Murphy, NC. Most of my marketing will be done online, but I’ll also be using what I’ve learned about local offline marketing, too.

Most people do not live in the online world as much as many of us do. They don’t spend hours on Twitter, Facebook, or whatever.

No. Really. I’m serious.

They have real lives that don’t involve blogs, websites, social networking, social bookmarking, and may not even know what an ebook is.

And many of them could become your best customer if you find a way to offer what they want and put yourself in front of them when they’re ready to purchase.

One way to do that, in both the offline and online world, is to offer something free.

In Internet Marketing, people offer free ebooks in return to get you to sign up for their mailing list. This has been effective in the past, but is getting less effective as time goes by.

How many free ebooks or reports do you have on your computer that you’ve never read or even skimmed? I’m willing to bet there are quite a few. If you ever took the time to read them, you’d quickly discover that a very few are outstanding and offer great information. Some are good and worth a read or quick skim. Others, and I’m willing to bet they are the majority, are worthless. They were put together quickly with little quality control, lack of any depth of knowledge of the subject, or any other intention other than offering you a bauble to get you to sign up to their marketing list.

And, then, to top it off, most of those marketing lists are just as bad. In fact, I’ve seen more than one “marketing guru” advise giving anything away to get someone to sign up for your list, and then you can “market” to them (nearly) for free until they buy what you’re selling or unsubscribe from your list. When they do buy, add them to the next list in your marketing funnel and repeat the process with something more expensive that offers more profit. Ad infinitum, ad nauseam.

Don’t fall for that.

Yes, some successful businesses have involved and very profitable marketing funnels and they do well for the owner. I am not disputing that. If that’s the way you want to live, then go for it.

I don’t.

When I talk about offering something for free, I’m not talking about giving something away to get your readers to sign up for your mailing list.

I’m talking about building a site with lots of free, high-quality, authoritative information about a topic you really know and in which you and your reader are both interested.

I want to develop real relationships (perhaps friendships) with real people about something I really care about. I want to offer the best information I can to them for free and also give them ways to purchase things they want.

I have not done a good job of that. Why? Because I was not focused on doing business. I was distracted by “online marketing.”

I’ve come to view affiliate marketing as more than just advertising. You probably will disagree with me on this, and feel free to do so.

Over time, I’ve promoted a lot of things. I had to learn the ropes, make my mistakes, learn from some of them, and try not to repeat those same mistakes.

I got sidetracked into downline builders, traffic exchanges, and social networking on lots of sites that produced no (or very small) results. I tried multilevel marketing. I tried all sorts of ways to build traffic and turn visitors into dollars.

Then one day, I put on my blinders and walked off those treadmills. I was making what lots of people would call a good income, but none of us were getting anywhere from it. It was a treadmill that lead to nowhere and all we were doing was trying to run fast enough to bring in a trickle of income.

Yes it works. I’m not saying it’s bad. I’m saying it’s bad for me. It’s not something I can look back on with pride and satisfaction knowing that I helped others. If anything, I’m responsible for sucking some of them into that same “running on the treadmill to nowhere” scenario and calling it a business.

I stopped doing all of that and I’m canceling accounts on hundreds of sites.

Mea culpa.

Would I want to get my best friend, parent, sibling, or child doing all of that just to earn a few (hundred) dollars per month? No.

So, I asked myself, what DO I want to do? What can I do that will be satisfying, helpful, and real?

I took a close and not-too-comfortable look at myself and started shedding lots of things I had “learned” from “marketing gurus” and “online business mentors” and “coaches.”

My new criteria is this: Would I offer something to my mother or my daughter?

If the answer is no, then I won’t offer it to you.

That greatly simplifies things for me.

Getting back to Murphy Gold for a moment…

I will only promote businesses on that site that I would recommend to my mother or daughter. Each business on that site is a personal recommendation from me. I’ve turned down several business owners because I don’t like the way they run their business or treat their customers.

I only contact business owners with whom I’ve had good, long-term relationships, or who were recommended by more than one person I trust who lives in the community and has done business with that business owner. I offer to promote them online for a fee. In the future, as I get healthier, I’ll also be promoting them offline in our community (and it won’t cost them any extra).

I have a lot of work to do on that site. I started in one direction, learned from a few mistakes, and now I’m tweaking it to make it better. I still have hundreds of pages to write, but I’ve already done the majority of the research and I’ve developed a site blueprint. I know where it’s going and how to get there. I’ve focused and planned.

Now, it’s time for implementation.

I have to knuckle-down and do the work. It’s going to take time to write those hundreds of pages and then promote them where the residents of our community (and those who are interested in visiting and/or moving to Murphy, NC) will find them, and that means both online and offline promotions.

Focus, planning, and implementation.

While most of my other sites rely on Google Adsense and affiliate links for monetization, Murphy Gold will focus on introducing real people (customers) to other real people (business owners) so that they can do what people have been doing for centuries — trading money for goods and services.

It’s real business. It’s real people. It’s real relationships. It’s real.

It’s something I’ll be able to look back on in twenty years (if I make it) and be proud of doing.

Affiliate marketing will play a very small part in monetizing visitors to Murphy Gold.

Google Adsense will play some part in monetizing some parts of the site, as long as it doesn’t conflict with the main goal of promoting local business owners who deserve it. Anyone can buy ads on Google Adwords and I don’t have much control of that, so I’ll only be putting Adsense ads on some of the pages. I don’t yet know exactly which pages that will be and it’s going to take some testing.

On other sites, such as Act On Your Dream!, Adsense and affiliate links will play a bigger role. I’ve been developing a new blueprint for that site and it will be reorganized and revitalized as I have the energy. It’s never been a huge monetary success, but it’s about a topic in which I’m extremely interested and I have some ideas on how I want to proceed with it.

Other sites will be taken down, including GeorgiaDragRacing.com, which I built for my brother. It has been a very profitable site, but his health problems have gotten to the point where he can no longer go to the drag racing events and publish the photos and information he once could. So, he wants me to burn it to a DVD and take it down. It’s his site, and I’ll do what he wants as soon as I can. (I have some technical problems involving old software and new computers to solve before I can get the database to generate a complete local copy of that site and burn it to a DVD for him.)

Over time, most of what’s in JohnDilbeck.com, MurphyNC28906.com, and other smaller sites will be moved into AYearFromNow.com or MurphyGold.com. Part of my focus is to keep the best and toss the rest. I’ll be consolidating information from my blogs and some of my websites into sites that are powered by SBI, because it works best for me.

Eventually, I’ll be off the blogging treadmill, too.

In the short term, I’ll lose some income as I take down sites that have lots of visitors and make money. In the long term, I’ll be able to focus more on what I’m doing and to implement the plan I’ve developed.

If you’re still reading this, you’re one of the few who have a reasonable attention span and I applaud you.

I know that I’m moving in a different direction than most affiliate marketers and I’ll probably move some of the information from here into AYearFromNow.com and take down this blog, too. I’ll miss some of the social interaction that comes from the comments on this blog, but — again — I’ll be able to focus more on my new business plan.

Affiliate marketing has been good to me for over a decade and will continue to be one of the larger streams of income, but it is going to change and I’ll only be promoting products and services that, get ready for it, here it comes…I’d recommend to my Mom or daughter.

I learned a long time ago to write a page with one main objective. Simple pages that offer quality information and which lead to a desired action step or alternative backup action that I want the reader to take.

Some pages are purely informational. Google Adsense is a good way to monetize them (as long as someone is advertising using the keywords for which the page is built).

Some pages are designed to get people to drive to a business, get out of their car, and go inside a store. I won’t have anything competing with those.

Some pages are designed to promote things to do in surrounding cities and they’ll have Adsense and some affiliate links on them.

For each page, I’ll have one thing I want the reader to do. Failing that, I’ll link to other pages on the site.

Keep it simple. Reduce distractions. Make it easy to read, tightly focused, and easy to navigate.

Will I be the best at doing this? Probably not. In my heart, I’m a techno-nerd, not a businessman.

I’ll do my best and continue living in a place I love and telling the world more about it.

Hopefully, it will provide a comfortable income, too.

What about you?

Have you planned your business and decided what you want to accomplish?

What is it?

Do you agree or disagree with my belief that what I promote on my site (other than Adsense ads) is a personal recommendation?

I’m interested in your thoughts about focusing on your business and achieving your goals.

Act on your dream!

JD

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What is your time worth?

October 9, 2010 by John Dilbeck · 10 Comments
Filed under: Act On Your Dream!, Affiliate Marketing, Blogging, Forums, Marketing, Musings, Sitesell and Site Build It, Webhosting, Websites, WordPress 

And, even more directly, what is my time worth?

That’s the question I’m asking myself this morning.

This evening, a little over 100 miles from here, my high school classmates are having our 40th high school reunion and I would love to go and see them. We’ve become reacquainted this year on Facebook and we’re sharing tidbits about our families and what’s happening with all of us.

That makes this year different.

In the past, I didn’t mind missing the reunions because I’d lost touch with everyone, even my best friends from high school. This year, it’s different. I’m reading their stories and they’re reading mine. We’ve reconnected — as people and not just names and memories.

40 years is a long time, and yet, in many ways, it seems to have flown by. In other ways, it feels like it’s been an eternity since I saw any of them.

Since I had to make the decision, this morning, that I couldn’t make it to this reunion, due to being weak and tired from this week’s chemotherapy, I got to thinking about other things I’ve done with my time.

I look back on the last 40 years and I like that I concentrated on computers and mastered them enough to build a decent career as a consultant, teacher, programmer, and administrator. It made it possible for me to move here to Murphy, NC, and I love living here in the mountains and out of the rat race. I invested over a decade in the big cities of Atlanta and Phoenix and was then able to bring myself and my business here.

I like that I have good friends who care about me as much as I care about them. That, too, takes time.

For the rest of this post, I’m going to concentrate on the last decade or so.

As you may already know, the last decade has been full of challenges for my family. For over seven years, I was the sole, full-time caretaker for my elderly mother as she battled cancer and the after-effects of the surgery. I cared for her as long as I could but she had to go into a nursing home for the last few months of her life. At least, I helped her live at home for a few more years.

This year, I’m fighting my own battle with cancer and the tide seems to have turned. I intend to win this war and get healthy and stronger. A year from now, I intend to be much better than I am today.

During all this time, my online marketing business allowed me the time to stay home and care for her, and now for myself.

(In my own case, however, I’ve had to file for disability to pay for all the medical bills and my living expenses until I can really resume working. These days, I’m able to do a bit here and there, but nowhere nearly as much as I used to do. Up until this summer, my online marketing business provided 100% of my income for most of the last decade. As soon as possible, it will once again provide the income for me to live my life as I like it.)

Just out of curiosity, I went to Alexa’s Way Back Machine and looked at the first few days of JohnDilbeck.com as it looked on October 18, 2000 — just over one more week from its 10th anniversary. (Actually, I registered the domain a few months earlier, on my birthday. In many ways, it looks much the same now as it did back then: JohnDilbeck.com)

Even in my earliest attempts, I was using affiliate marketing to earn a living. This site brought in thousands of dollars over the years.

Even my very first domain, Need-Sleep.com, was a money maker, primarily because I was one of the earliest Amazon.com affiliates. That look into the Way Back Machine shows my first money-making site as it looked about 13 years ago.

(I miss my HyperDimensional Book Nook.)

All my sites that depended upon the Amazon.com affiliate program for income took a dive when Amazon terminated all their associates in North Carolina following our legislature’s misguided attempt to bring in more taxes with their new nexus laws. Unlike some people, however, I relied on Amazon.com as only one stream in my income river, so although substantial, losing Amazon and other big retailers did not put me out of business. However, that, coupled with the massive downturn in the economy, really did put a crimp on my income. It’s a good thing I have no debts and my overhead is very low. Even with the lowered income, I was able to weather the storm and I’m starting to see my income rise, again, even though it’s only a fraction of what it once was.

Both sites were rather crude and certainly did not contain any eye candy to keep anyone entertained. Yet, both of them made money for me.

I only wish I had been smart enough to sell the Need-Sleep.com domain to someone rather than just letting the domain registration lapse.

I just looked and the domain is available. I almost registered it for old time’s sake, but decided not to. I’ve registered way too many domains over the years and most of them have been failures. Besides, now that I’m no longer a computer consultant working all around the clock, I no longer need sleep. (grin)

I won’t bother you with them, but I’ve looked at some of those old domains this morning and recognize all the hard work that I put into them and all the time that was wasted over the years.

If I had avoided all the shiny red balls that kept bouncing across my marketing pathway, and had concentrated on building websites with depth and authority, I would have earned more for my efforts.

As a consultant, I knew the value of being paid for my work and I charged accordingly. I don’t know why I forgot those hard-won lessons when I turned to Internet marketing.

I also know the value in paying for expert help when I need it, so why did I spend thousands of hours (and quite a bit of money) learning and relearning how to build “free” websites over the years? Looking back on it from my new perspective, I just don’t understand it.

Still, some of my websites did well enough that I earned a decent living, where I wanted to live, doing what I wanted to do, so that I could invest waste time learning all the new scripts, building forums, article directories, blogs, playing on traffic exchanges, learning I don’t do well with MLM, and learning another half-dozen programming languages.

What do I have to show for all that? A few dollars here and there. It’s true that I know more about all this stuff than I did, but it’s worthless knowledge, because I’ll never be able to recoup the value of the time I wasted in the process.

I’ve told you before — and some of you may be sick of hearing it — that I’m moving away from blogging (which I’ve been doing for over 10 years) and back to building hierarchically organized static websites. Over the years, even though I put more of my effort into blogging than I did into building content focused websites, very little of my income has come from my blogging efforts.

I got other things out of it, however. There was the social interaction, meeting new friends, and sharing new discoveries, but there was very little money added to my income streams.

I don’t have the exact numbers, but I’m sure my income from my best websites (which I sorely neglected over the years) outperformed my blogs by at least a ratio of 50 to 1, and maybe a bit more.

I was just looking at the first available page of my first blog (on the Way Back Machine), John Dilbeck’s Ramblings, and noticed that even the name shows my lack of focus. John Dilbeck’s Ramblings is no way to inspire confidence and help readers focus on what I’m writing about.

So, over the next ten years, I plan to focus most of my attention on two sites, Act On Your Dream! and my primary site at Murphy Gold.

Not so coincidentally, they are both powered by SBI.

I knew that SBI was a great way to build a site, but something in me, probably a personality defect, drove me to try all these other things and see if I was able to do better with them than I could by using SBI and following the Action Guide.

The only really good result from all my testing is that I have proven to myself that I’ve been spinning my wheels for many years and now it’s going to be much easier to follow what I learn from all the folks at Sitesell.

If I were starting over a couple of years ago, I would have slapped up a new WordPress blog and started rambling. Now, I’ve relearned what I learned a decade ago and I won’t make that mistake.

Ken Evoy makes the point so well on the WordPress or SBI page.

While I was playing and testing on WordPress, and making a hundred dollars here and there, my SBI sites were generating the income that gave me the free time to waste. (Two of my other sites were built based on the principles of Ken Evoy’s Make Your Site Sell! ebook, and they also generated income. They were built before SBI was available, or they would have been powered by SBI, too.)

I’ve given a lot of things the benefit of the doubt, and that includes blogging, building forums, creating article directories, and much more, and it just has not been worth the effort. If I were getting paid by the hour for all the work I’ve done on them, I would have made less than minimum wage.

What does that say about building a business? I could have earned more money with less work by slinging burgers at the local greasy spoon. Sigh.

Fortunately, a handful of websites pulled their load and earned much more than the others. That’s the direction I’m moving in, once again, following a very long detour.

So, what’s your time — and your creative talent — worth? Are you satisfied earning a few hundred dollars per month from your online business, or do you think you’re worth more?

If someone offered me $200 to be their consultant for a month, I’d turn them down, without even having to think about it. So, why would I settle for that as income from blogging all month?

Sometimes I just don’t understand myself. At least, I can learn from my mistakes.

What about you?

What is your time worth?

Act on your dream!

JD

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Why do some forums thrive and others just seem to wilt?

August 24, 2009 by John Dilbeck · 21 Comments
Filed under: Act On Your Dream!, Communities, Forums, Social Networking 

I have several forums that I manage and I don’t know the answer to what appears to be a simple question.

Why do some of them thrive and grow while others just wilt?

Two that are thriving are actually social networking communities hosted on Ning.com, but they feel very much like a forum to me.

My Squidoo Marketing community continues to grow very well and the membership is approaching 200 members. I join in the conversations when I have something to say, watch out for spam, and check in two or three times per day, but the majority of the activity comes from the members interacting with each other.

Murphy Connections is growing, too, but a bit more slowly. That’s understandable since it’s geographically targeted to a small town in the mountains of western North Carolina. Yet, even though it draws from a smaller target group, it is growing and the participation is pretty good.

On the other hand, my A Year From Now Forum, which is tied in with my Act On Your Dream! website just isn’t doing anything. Part of the fault is mine, because I really neglected it over much of the last couple of years when I wasn’t able to give it the attention it deserved. Still, it’s getting an average of 50 visitors per day, yet practically none of them are joining and participating. It’s obvious that the posts are getting read, but replies and new threads are practically non-existent.

Is it the subject matter? Am I reaching the wrong audience? Is the forum just not worth joining and participating?

I don’t have much ego involved in this, so please feel free to be honest with your comments. Just remember that honest doesn’t mean the same thing as brutal.

I’m hoping your fresh eyes on the subject will help me learn what I can do differently to improve.

I’m hoping you can offer some advice to help me.

Act on your dream!

JD

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Deleting old bookmarks on Delicious.com

August 18, 2009 by John Dilbeck · 8 Comments
Filed under: Act On Your Dream!, Musings, Web Services 

For the last several days, I have been diligently working to update and rebuild all of my Act On Your Dream! website.

This is one of my favorite sites and I was dismayed to see how much I’ve neglected updating and adding new information to the site. That’s something I plan to remedy in the coming weeks.

This morning, I was editing the Delicious Tag Cloud page and noticed that there were tags for things I’m no longer interested in and others that I no longer promote.

It’s been awhile since I’ve really worked with Delicious.com (used to be del.icio.us) and I realized that I had several dozen bookmarks that I needed to delete and others that needed to be edited to remove tags that were no longer appropriate.

It was a fairly easy process and I was reminded why I like Delicious.com more than the other bookmarking sites.

Do you use bookmarking sites to share your bookmarks with others? When is the last time you took a look to see if you’re showing what you want to share, now?

It took maybe an hour to update over 200 bookmarks and to winnow them down to less than 200. They make it easy.

Act on your dream!

JD

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Site Build It – the best time of year to buy

December 12, 2008 by John Dilbeck · 7 Comments
Filed under: Act On Your Dream!, Sitesell and Site Build It, Webhosting 

Are you familiar with Site Build It!?

If you’ve visited any of my sites, blogs, forums, and communities, you’ve most likely seen ads and articles about Site Build It! and why I like it so much. Still, you may not have taken the time to really learn about it and why it is like no other online business solution. Site Build It! is much more than just a webhosting company.

It’s an all-in-one hosting, site-building, and online-success-making system that can possibly change a life. SiteSell, the manufacturer, actually guarantees online success if you follow the proven system.

Here’s a short video that explains the product…

Take the video tour, now.

Over 100,000 customers, including me, have already used it to create real online businesses that let us work from home or wherever we want (it’s a Web based system). Sitesell has plenty of testimonials to prove it too. Take a look at their Case Studies page.

Or this page of videos that were actually done by their customers…

I Love SBI

But the best news of all is…

Now is the absolute best time of the year to buy Site Build It!. They have a Holiday Special going on where you can buy-one-site and get-one-free. It ends up being about $150 per site.

(Although Sitesell offers discounts on purchasing two sites at other major holidays, this is the only time of the year where you get the second site free. All the other holiday specials offer the second site for $100 when you purchase the first site at $299. This holiday special is a true buy-one-get-one-free discount. Don’t miss it.)

I know what you’re saying. Why do I need more than one site?

You don’t! You can always give the other one away as a New Year’s gift. Or sell it. Or find a friend who wants a great deal too.

But you might want to keep it. Did you know that the majority of people making a full-time living online have more than one site. You just might double your pleasure… and income.

When you get one site to where it is producing a reliable income stream, you’ll understand why you may want to create other niche-oriented, content-rich sites to increase your revenue with additional income streams. Not everyone wants to manage more than one site, but many Site Build It! subscribers do.

And did I mention that Sitesell guarantees your success. Yep! You can get your money-back if you don’t feel that it will help you build a successful online business. There’s really no risk involved. (If you ask for a refund in the first 30 days, you’ll get 100% of your money back. After that, Sitesell will refund your subscription price on a prorata basis at any time during your one-year subscription period. Their site offers all the details.)

Once you understand the Site Build It! process, you’ll be hooked.

Most people think that all you need is hosting and site-builder software to make a Web site. That’s technically true. But getting people to find that Web site is the key to building a long-term business that actually makes real money. Without traffic your site will be lost in the wilderness.

One reason webhosting is offered so cheaply by so many companies is because of the few resources most websites require. Since most sites get very few visitors, some other webhosting services, not Sitesell, put hundreds of domains on a single server (computer) and rake in the cash from domain owners whose websites sit there waiting for someone to visit.

On the other hand, the Site Build It! system helps you build a site that people are looking for. Their C-T-P-M system teaches you how to create a site that’s in demand. Once you have traffic, then you can choose many ways to turn that traffic into revenue. Here’s a page that explains their proven process…

Site Build It’s C-T-P-M system for online business success.

Doesn’t it just make sense?

But I don’t know anything about the Internet, you say. Or HTML. I’m no computer geek, you’re thinking.

Can you send email? Have you used a word processor? If you can do that, you can build a Site Build It! site. It’s really a simple process that is doable by anyone. All you need is the motivation and commitment to follow the process.

If you can’t do that then Site Build It! is not for you. It’s not “Get Rich Quick.” There’s really no such thing. But if you have the motivation and a little brains you CAN do it.

After all, your success is guaranteed. What have you got to lose.

Here’s where you can go to read about that guarantee…

Site Build It’s order page with a link to the guarantee.

And maybe use that Buy-One, Get-One-Free Special to start a whole new life.

But hurry. This holiday special offer ends at midnight on December 25, 2008.

(If past history is an indicator, there is a good chance that the offer may be extended until just after January 1, but I wouldn’t bet on it. Don’t procrastinate; you don’t want to miss this special.)

Who knows, perhaps you or someone you know will be able to change your, or their, life in 2009. Why give someone a gift that will be a flash-in-the-pan and will be forgotten or ignored in a few days or weeks. Give the gift of Site Build It! and help someone develop one of the most important skills of the 21st Century.

Do it for yourself or someone else you care about.

I’m happy that I am a Site Build It! subscriber and I’ll be adding a lot to my site in the coming months.

I hope you’ll be one of the new SBI success stories in 2009.

Act on your dream!

JD

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Writing and Self-Publishing section added to bookstore

August 24, 2008 by John Dilbeck · 4 Comments
Filed under: Act On Your Dream!, Affiliate Marketing, Books, Lulu, Marketing, Promote Yourself, Self-Publishing, Writing 

Ever since I read Make Your Knowledge Sell! several years ago, I’ve known that I wanted to write a series of reports and ebooks with several goals in mind…

  • To share the knowledge I’ve learned over years of researching affiliate marketing and from the daily practice of it
  • To enhance my reputation as being someone with integrity who offers good advice about online marketing
  • To provide information that will help you avoid the pitfalls I’ve traversed and to make more money with affiliate marketing
  • To do more of something I enjoy doing: writing

About a thousand years ago, Nicki Fink and I wrote a textbook we used for teaching our students how to use Macintosh computers and several of the more popular applications that were in use at the time.

Knowing nothing about writing a book, we just did it.

Our first couple of editions were printed on a laser printer and we did all the collation and comb-binding ourselves.

When we finally approached a publisher, we had a pretty good book that was helping our students learn how to use Macs by completing a series of projects.

I submitted the entire book to Addison Wesley and instead of getting a rejection notice, as everyone had advised me to expect, we got an offer from Addison Wesley and Benjamin Cummings.

Addison Wesley wanted to get it into print quickly and Benjamin Cummings wanted a complete rewrite along with reviews by several colleges and academies before publishing it.

We made the mistake of going with Benjamin Cummings and added about another year to the project in addition to having several disagreements with the editor about the direction we wanted to go with the book.

Eventually the book was published and we received a few thousand dollars in advance royalties.

I was happy to have a published book that was helping some people learn how to use their Macs better, but the entire experience was less than satisfactory. I swore that the next book I wrote would be self-published.

Now, in the 21st century, a lot of things have changed. Books and reports can be released as ebooks and offered in downloadable PDF format. Tools and applications for doing this are becoming more popular and affordable.

Additionally, if you take the time to format that PDF ebook correctly, you can have it printed and sold at places like Lulu.com, CafePress.com, and many other print-on-demand publishers.

(I’ve started a Lulu.com storefront where I’ll be promoting reports, ebooks, and books in the coming months, as I have time to research and write them. Currently, there is one free downloadable copy of my Act On Your Dream! newsletter.)

Since writing and self-publishing have moved up higher on my to-do list, I researched these topics on Amazon.com this evening. As a result, I’ve added a new section to my Amazon store for Writing and Self-Publishing Books.

I have an older copy of Dan Poynter’s Self-Publishing Manual and I’m looking forward to buying and reading his latest edition.

Most people who dream of being a writer don’t know that writing is only one part of the job. Perhaps more important than writing a good book is promoting and publicizing it. If nobody knows about it, you won’t sell very many copies!

I added a few books about writing non-fiction, but most of the books in the new section are about promoting, publicizing, and networking. After all, if you’re reading this blog, you’re probably interested in affiliate marketing and other topics related to online marketing, so I’m sure you will find books of interest in this new section of my bookstore.

I’m always interested in your comments and recommendations. If you know of an excellent book about writing, self-publishing, or promoting books, I hope you’ll share with us.

Act on your dream!

JD

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The Fringe Benefits of Failure and the Importance of Imagination

August 16, 2008 by John Dilbeck · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Act On Your Dream!, Friends and Family, Success and Failure 

J.K. Rowling, author of the best-selling Harry Potter book series, recently delivered her Commencement Address, “The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination,” at the Annual Meeting of the Harvard Alumni Association.

I was told about this speech by one of my friends on the members-only SiteSell forums for Site Build It! subscribers. Thanks, Colin.

If I hadn’t heard about her speech there, I might have missed it and that would have been a real shame.

In reading her speech, I was surprised by how little she referred to Harry Potter, even though writing her novels took her to dizzying heights of success.

Instead, she talks about the liberation of total failure and the importance of imagining new futures and different pasts.

In talking about failure, part of what she emphasized was:

So why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me. Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged. I was set free, because my greatest fear had already been realised, and I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.

I have experienced this level of failure a couple of times in my life. It isn’t fun, but it can be educational and liberating. Depending upon how you react to it, these experiences can put steel in your resolve and be a foundation upon which you can build your future success.

It reminds me of the lines Kris Kristofferson wrote in “Bobby McGee” when he said, “Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.”

Once you’ve lost everything – materially, that is – you aren’t encumbered by the things you want to believe about yourself, because many of them fall away as you lose houses, cars, credit ratings, and other things we associate with material affluence.

Other parts of the experience can be harder, or they can be liberating. For example, to one person, losing a spouse can be something that will hurt for decades. To another, it can be a difficult, but liberating, experience that will make it easier to build a better life, move in a different direction, and grow more as a person.

This level of failure is truly difficult and poverty is not something I would wish on anyone.

However, it can be life-changing, if you take the steps to do what you truly want to do. Like a phoenix rising from its own ashes, you can rise to new levels of success, understanding, and personal fulfillment that you would never have achieved, otherwise.

Is it easy?

No.

Can you do it?

Yes.

As she progressed with her speech, Ms. Rowling says this about imagination:

You might think that I chose my second theme, the importance of imagination, because of the part it played in rebuilding my life, but that is not wholly so. Though I will defend the value of bedtime stories to my last gasp, I have learned to value imagination in a much broader sense. Imagination is not only the uniquely human capacity to envision that which is not, and therefore the fount of all invention and innovation. In its arguably most transformative and revelatory capacity, it is the power that enables us to empathise with humans whose experiences we have never shared.

Here is where the speech took a turn that really surprised me.

I was sure she was going to emphasize the imagination that enabled her to write all the Harry Potter stories, but she went in a very different direction.

Instead, she talked about her earliest exeriences when working with Amnesty International and all the suffering that had been experienced by people who had been tortured and killed and the uncertainty, pain, and worry experienced by their family and friends.

I have to tell you, this is totally outside my own experiences, but after reading what she wrote, I have found more empathy for the people who have experienced these horrors.

Compared to them, even in my deepest failures and during the darkest days of my life, I have had it easy and safe.

Ms. Rowling continued and said:

Unlike any other creature on this planet, humans can learn and understand, without having experienced. They can think themselves into other people’s minds, imagine themselves into other people’s places.

Imagination is a powerful thing.

It is the basis for all future inventions.

By imagining, we can achieve things undreamed of by others.

Napoleon Hill said, in Think and Grow Rich:

Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve.

This is the power that we have to create new worlds and change the horrors we have inherited from those who preceded us.

We can write novels that inspire millions to read more.

We can develop better products and services to solve problems and offer opportunities to people around the world.

Or, when used negatively, we can imagine worse things that we can do to make the lives of our fellow earthlings even more miserable.

The choice is up to us.

The choice is up to you.

Or, if you prefer, you can choose not to use your power of imagination. You can continue to lead the life you’re living and not imagine the great future you can live if you pursue your dreams and follow your passions.

Again, the choice is yours.

Ms. Rowling closes her speech by talking about her friends. These are the people that offer support and help in times of need and share joy in times of abundance.

Even when I lost everything, I still had my friends and family.

True friends can be even more important than your family, because you may have closer bonds and more in common with them.

You don’t need a lot of friends, but I hope you have a few really close friends with whom you share your life. These friends are treasures worth far more than the rarest metals or the prettiest sparkly rocks.

Share your life with your friends and family. Help each other live to your fullest potential.

Thank you, Ms. Rowling, for an outstanding speech and I’m happy I was able to read it. (If you have broadband, you can watch the video.)

The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination

Now, it’s up to you.

You have the power to change the world.

Act on your dream!

JD

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